July 13, 1916 
L A iN D & WATER 
Greenmantle 
By John Buchan 
A Sequel to " The Thirty-Nine Steps" 
19 
Synopsis : Richard Hannay. who obtained a commission 
in the new Army was wounded at Loos. With his friend 
Sandy, the Hon. L. G. Arbuthnot, he is convalescing in 
Hampshire, when a telegram, from Sir Walter Bullivant 
of the Foreign Office, summons him to London. Sir Walter 
asks him to undertake a mission to unearth a secret connected 
with Turkey and Germany. It is a secret that, in his 
o billion, may possibly lead to a big uprising throughout 
Asia and Africa. The only clue is a scrap of paper bearing 
the words, Kasredin— cancer — v.I. This paper was 
handed to the British headquarters in Mesopotamia bv an 
officer — Sir Walter's son — wounded to death in obtaining 
it,^ who died without speaking. Hannay undertakes the 
mission, provided Sandy, who has a liking for work in 
dangerous places of the earth, joins him. Sandy consents. 
Sir Walter introduces him by letter to a wealthy American 
gentleman, John S. Blenkiron, a large fat man suffering 
from indigestion, with a weakness for Patience, strongly 
pro-Ally and delighting in adventure. On November ijth. 
the three dine together at a London flat, and agree to meet 
in a disreputable cafe in a back street of Constantinople 
two months later— on January lyth. Sandv decides to go 
to Constantinople disguised as a Turk ; John S. Blenkiron 
is to drop into Germany as his own self by way of Scandina- 
via ; Hannay, who has lived in South Africa as a mining 
engineer and can speak Dutch perfcctlv, is to enter Germany 
through Holland as a Boer from Western Cape Colony. 
So they part. 
CHAPTER III 
Peter Pienaar 
OUR various departures were unassuming, all but the 
\merican's. Sandy spent a busy fortnight in his 
subterranean fashion, now in the British Museum, 
now running about the country to see old exploring 
comijanions, now at the War Office, now at the Foreign Office, 
but mostly in my flat, sunk in an armchair and meditating. 
He left finally on December ist as a King's messenger for 
Cairo. Once there I knew the King's Mes.'Senger would dis- 
appear and some queer Oriental ruffian take his place. It 
would have been impudence in me to inquire into his plans. 
He was the real professional, and I was only the dabbler. 
Blenkiron was a different matter. Sir Walter told me to 
00k out for squalls, and the twinkle in his eye gave me a 
notion of what was coming. The first thing the sportsman 
did was to write a letter to the papers signed with his name. 
There had been a debate in the House of Commons on Foreign 
liolicy, and the speech of some idiot there gave him his cue. 
He declared that he had been heart and soul with the British 
at the start, but that he was reluctantly compelled to change 
his views. He said our blockade of Germany had broken 
all the laws of God and humanity, and he reckoned that 
Britain was now the worst exponent of Prussianism going. 
That letter made a fine racket, and the paper that printed it 
had a row with the Censor. 
But that was only the beginning of Mr. Blenkiron's cam- 
paign. He got mixed up with some mountebanks called the 
League of Democrats against Aggression, gentlemen who 
thought tint Germany was all right if we would only keep 
from hurtmg her feehngs. He addressed a meeting under 
their auspices, which was broken up by the crowd, but not 
before John S. had got off his chest a lot of amazing stuff. I 
wasn't there, but a man who was told me that he never heard 
such a speech. He said that Germany was right in wanting 
the freedom of the seas, and that America would back her up, 
and that the British Navy was a bigger menace to the peace 
of the world than the Kaiser's army. He admitted that he 
had once thought differentlv, but he was an honest man and 
not afraid to face facts. The oration closed suddenly, when 
he got a brussel-sprout in the eye, at which my friend said 
he swore in a very unpacifist style. 
After that he vvrote other letters to the press saying that 
Ihore was no more liberty of speech in England, and a lot of 
scallvwags backed him up. Some Americans wanted to tar 
and feather him, and he got kicked out of the Savoy. There 
was an agitation to get him deported, and questions were 
asked in Parliament, and the Under-Secretary (o.- Foreign 
Affairs said his department had the matter in hand. I was 
beginning to think that Blenkiron was carrying his tom- 
foolery too far, so I went to see Sir Walter, but he told me to 
keep my mind easy. " Our friend's motto is ' Thorough,' " 
he said, " and he knows very well what he is about. We have 
officially requested him to leave, and he sails from Newcastle 
on Monday. He will be shadowed wherever he goes and 
we hope to provoke more outbreaks. He is a very capable 
fellow." 
The last I saw of him was on the Saturday's afternoon 
when I met him in St. James's Street and offered to shake hands. 
He told me that my uniform was a pollution, and made a 
speech to a small crowd about it. They hissed him and he had 
to get into a taxi. As he departed there was just a suspicion 
of a wink in his left eye. On Monday 1 read that he had 
gone off and the papers observed that our shores were well 
quit of him. 
I sailed on December 3rd from Liverpool in a boat bound 
for the Argentine that was due to put in at Lisbon. I had 
of course to get a Foreign Office passport to leave England, 
but after that my connection with the Government ceased. 
All the details of my journey were carefully thought out. 
Lisbon would be a good jumping-off place, for it was the 
rendezvous of scallywags from most parts of Africa. My 
kit was an old Gladstone bag, and my clothes were the relics 
of my South African wardrobe. I let my beard grow for 
some days before 1 sailed, and, since it grows fast, I went on 
board with the kind of hairy chin you will see on the young 
Boer. My name was now Brandt, Cornehs Brandt — at 
least so my passport said, and the Foreign Office does not lie. 
There were just two passengers on thit beastly boat and 
they never appeared till we were out of the Bay. I was pretty 
bad myself, but managed to move about all the time, for the 
frowst in my cabin would have sickened a hippo. The old tub 
took two days and a night to waddle from Ushant to Finisterre. 
Then the weather changed and we came out of snow-squalls 
into something very like summer. The hills of Portugal were all 
blue and yellow like the Kalahari, and before we made the 
Tagus I was beginning to forget I had ever left Rhodesia. 
There was a Dutchman among the sailors with whom I used 
to patter the taal, and but for " Good morning " and " Good 
evening " in broken English to the Captain, that was about 
all the talking I did on the cruise. 
We dropped anchor off the quays of Lisbon on a shiny blue 
morning, pretty near warm enough to wear flannels. I 
had now got to be very wary. I did not leave the ship with 
the shore-going boat, but made a leisurely breakfast. Then 
I strolled on deck, and there, just casting anchor in the middle 
of the stream, was another ship with the blue and white 
funnel I knew so well. I calculated that a month before she 
had been sweUing the mangrove swamps of Angola. Nothing 
better could answer my purpose.' I proposed to board her, 
pretending I was looking for a friend, and come on shore from 
her, so that anyone in Lisbon who chose to be curious would 
think 1 had landed straight from Portuguese Africa. 
I hailed one of the adjacent ruffians, and got into his row- 
boat, with my kit. We reached the vessel — they called 
her the Henry the Navigator — just as the first shore-boat was 
leaving. The crowd in it were all Portuguese, which suited 
my book. 
But when I went up the ladder the first man I met was old 
Peter Pienaar. 
There was a piece of sheer monumental luck. Peter had 
opened his eyes and his mouth and had got as far as " Al- 
lemachtig " when I shut him up. 
" Brandt," I said, " Cornells Brandt. That's my name 
now, and don't you forget it. Who is the captain here ? Is 
it still old Sloggett ? " 
" Ja," said Peter, pulHng himself together. " He was 
sj>eaking about you yesterday." 
This was better and better. I sent Peter below to get 
hold of Sloggett, and presently I had a few words with that 
gentleman in his cabin with the door shut. 
" You've got to enter my name on the ship's books. I 
came aboard at Mossamedes. And my name's Cornells 
Brandt." 
At first Sloggett was for objecting. He said it was a felonv. 
I told him that I dared say it was, but he had got to do it, 
for reasons which I couldn't give but which were highly 
Oicditable to all parties. In the end he agreed and I saw it 
