July z"], 1916 
LAND & WATER 
19 
Greenmantle 
By John Buchan 
A Sequel to " The Thirty-Nine Steps •* 
Synopsis : Richard Hannay, who obtained a commission 
tn the new army and was wounded at Loos is asked by 
Sir Walter Bidlivant of the Foreign Office, to undertake 
a mission to unearth a secret connected with Turkey and 
Germany. It is a secret that, in his opinion, may pos- 
sibly 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 torn document was handed 
to the British headquarters in Mesopotamia by an 
officer—Sir Walter's son— wounded to death in obtaining it. 
Hannay undertakes the mission, his friend Sandy (the Hon. 
L. G. Arbiithnot) agrees to help him. Sir Walter intro- 
duces him to an American gentleman, John S. Blenkiron. 
a strong pro- Ally, who also joins them On November lyth 
the three dine together at a London flat, and agree to meet 
tn a cafe in a back street of Constantinople two months 
later—on January 17th. Sandy decides to go to Constanti- 
nople, disguised as a Turk, by way of Cairo. John S. 
Blenkir'^n drops into Germany as his own self by way of 
Scandinavia. Hannay, who has lived in South Africa 
as a mining engineer, and ' can speak Dutch perfectly, 
enters Germany through Holland as a Boer from Western 
Cape Colony. Hannay sails for Lisbon where he finds 
a steamer just arrived from Angola ; boarding it he meets 
his old Rhodesian friend, Peter Pienaar, to whom he un- 
folds his plans. Peter agrees to be his companion. They 
attract notice to themselves in a Lisbon cafe by loud talk 
against England. Presently a little German introduces 
himself and arranges their passage to Rotterdam. They 
go straight on to Germany and at the frontier are met by a 
German junior officer who conducts them to Berlin. Here 
they have an interview with two Government high officials ; 
one. Colonel von Stumm, had been in German South West 
.Africa, fighting the Hereros. The Colonel is a huge man 
" as hideous as a hippopotamus." He closely cross- 
examines Pienaar and Hannay. Hannay's plan for caus- 
ing a rising in Africa interests him. Having given Hannay 
a brutal exhibition of his physical strength, he dismisses 
him with the words : " Remember, I am your master." 
CHAPTER V 
Further Adventures of two Dutchmen 
NEXT morning there was a touch of frost and a nip in 
the air which stirred my blood and put me in buoyant 
spirits. I forgot my precarious position and the long 
road I had still to travel. I came down to breakfast 
in great form to find Peter's even temper badly rufiled. He 
had remembered Stumm in the n ght and disliked the memory ; 
this he muttered to me as we rubbed shoulders at the dining- 
room door. Peter and I got no opportunity for private talk. 
The Lieutenant was with us all the time, and at night we 
were locked in our rooms. Peter discovered this through 
trying to get out to find matches, for he had the bad habit of 
smoking in bed. 
Our guide started on the telephone and announced that 
we were to be taken to see a prisoners' camp. In the after- 
noon I was to go somewhere with Stumm, but the morning 
was for sightseeing. " You will see," he told us, " how 
merciful is a great people. You will also see some of the 
hated English in our power. That will dehght you. They 
are the forerunners of all their nation." 
We drove in a taxi through the suburbs and then over a 
stretch of flat market-garden-like country to a low rise of 
wooded hills. After an hour's ride we entered the gate of 
what looked like a big reformatory or hospital. I beMeve 
it had \>ecn a home for destitute children. There were 
sentries at the gate and massive concentric circles of barbed 
wire through which we passed under an arch which was let 
down like a portcullis at nightfall. The Lieutenant showed 
his ])ermit and we ran the car into a brick-paved yard and 
marched through a lot more sentries to the office of the Com- 
mandant. 
He was away from home, and we were welcomed by his 
deputy, a pale "young man with a head nearly bald. There 
were introductions in German which our guide translated into 
Dutch, and a lot of elegant speeches about how Germany 
was foremost in humanity as well as martial valour. Then 
they stood us sandwiches and beer, and we formed a procession 
for a tour of inspection. There were two doctors, both mild- 
looking men in spectacles, and a couple of warders, under- 
ofhcers of the good old burly bullying sort 1 knew well. That 
is the cement which has kept the German army togctiier. 
Her men were nothing to boast of on the average ; no more 
were the officers, even in crack corps like the Guards and the 
Brandenburgers ; but they seemed to have an inexhaustible 
supply of hard competent N.C.O.'s. 
We marched round the wash-houses, the recreation-ground, 
the kitchens, the hospital — with nobody in it save one chap 
with the "flu." It didn't seem to be badly done. This place 
was entirely for officers, and I expect it was a show place 
where American visitors were taken. If half the stories one 
heard were true there were some pretty ghastly prisons away 
in South and East Germany. 
I didn't half like the business. To be a prisoner has always 
seemed to me about the worst thing that could happen to a 
man. The sight of German prisoners used to give me a bad 
feeling inside, whereas I looked at dead Boches with nothing 
but satisfaction. Besides there was the off-chance that I 
might be recognised. So I kept very much in the shadow 
wlienever in the corridors we passed anybody. 
The few we met passed us incuriously. They saluted the 
Deputy-Commandant, but scarcely wasted a glance on us. 
No doubt they thought we were inquisitive Germans come 
to gloat over them. They looked fairly fit, a Uttle paffy about 
the eyes hke men who get too httle exercise. They seemed 
thin, too. I expect the food, for all the Commandant's talk, 
was nothing to boast of. In one room people were writing 
letters. It was a big place with only a tiny ,stove to warm it. 
and the windows were shut so that the atmosphere was a 
cold frowst. In another room a fellow was lecturing on 
something to a dozen hearers and drawing figures on a black- 
board. Some were in ordinary khaki, others in any old thing 
they could pick up, and most wore great-coats. Your blood 
gets thin when you have nothing to do but hope against hope 
and think of your pals and the old days. 
I was moving along, listening with half an ear to the 
Lieutenant's prattle and the loud explanations of the Deputy 
Commandant, when I pitchforked into what might have been 
the end of my business. We were going through a sort of 
convalescent room, where people were sitting who had been in 
hospital. It was a big place, a little warmer than the rest 
of the building, but still abominably fuggy. There were ' 
about half a dozen men in the room, reading and playing 
games. They looked at us with lack-lustre eyes for a moment 
and then returned to their occupations. Being convalescents 
I suppose they were not expecttd to get up and salute. 
All but one, who wis playing patience at a little table by 
which we passed. I was feeling very bad about the thing, for 
I hated to see these good fellows locked away in this mfernal 
German hole when they might have been giving the Boche 
his deserts at the front. The Commandant went first with 
Peter, who had developed a great interest in prisons. Then 
came our Lieutenant with one of the doctors ; then a couple 
of warders ; and then the second doctor and myself. I was 
absent-minded at the moment and was last in the queue. 
The patience-player suddenly looked up and •! saw his 
face. I'm hanged if it wasn't Dolly Riddell, who was our 
brigade machine-gun officer at Loos. I had heard that the 
Germans had got him when they blew up a mine at the 
Quarries. 
I had to act pretty quick, for his mouth was agape and 
I saw he was going to speak. The doctor was a yard ahead 
of me. 
I stumbled and spilt his cards on the floor. Then I kneeled 
to pick them up and gripped his knee. His head bent to help 
me and I spoke low in his car. " I'm Hannay all right. For 
God's sake don't wink an eye. I'm here on a secret job." 
The doctor had turned to see what was the matter. I got 
a few mire words in. "Cheer up, old man, we're winning 
hands down." 
Then I began to talk in excited Dutch and finished the 
collection of the cards. DoUy was playing his part well, 
smiling as if he were amused by the antics of a monkey. 
The others were coming back, the Deputy-Commandant with 
