20 
LAND & WATER 
July 27, 1916 
an angry light in his dull eye. " Speaking to the prisoners 
is forbidden," he sliouted. - 
I looked blankly at him till the Lieutenant translated. 
" What kind of a fellow is he ? " said Dolly in Enghsh to 
the doctor. " He spoils my game and then jabbers High- 
Dutch at me." 
Officially I knew finglish and that speech of Dolly's gave 
me my cue. I pretended to be very angry with the very 
damned Englishman, and went out the room close by the 
Deputy-Commandant grumbling Uke a sick jackal. After 
that I had to act a bit. The last place we visited was the 
close-confinement part where prisoners were kept as a punish- 
ment for some breach of the rules. They looked cheerless 
enough, but 1 pretended to gloat over the sight, and said so 
to the Lieutenant who passed it on to the others. I have 
r.irely in my life felt such a cad. 
On the way home the lieutenant discoursed a lot about 
prisoners and detention-camps, for at one time he had been 
on duty at Ruhleben. Peter, who had been in quod more 
than once in his life, was deeply interested and kept on 
questioning him. Among other things he told us was that 
they often put bogus prisoners among the rest who acted as 
spies. If any plot to escape was hatched these fellows got 
into it and encouraged it. They never interfered till the 
attempt was actually made, and then they had them on toast. 
There was nothing the Boche liked so much as an excuse for 
sending a poor devil to " solitarj'." 
That afternoon Peter and I separated. He was left behind 
with the Lieutenartt and I was sent off to the station with my 
bag in the company of a Landsturm sergeant. Peter was very 
cross and I didn't care for the look of things ; but 1 brightened 
up when I heard 1 was going somewhere with Stumm. If 
he wanted to see me again he must think mc of some use, 
and if he was going to use me he was bound to let me into 
his game. 1 liked Stumm about as much as a dog likes a 
scorpion, but I hankered for his society. 
At the station platform, where the ornament of the Land- 
sturm saved me all trouble about tickets, I could not sec my 
companion. I stood waiting, while a great crowd, mostly of 
soldiers, swayed past me and filled all the front carriages. 
An officer spoke to me gruffly and told me to stand aside 
behind a wooden rail. I obeyed and suddenly found Stumm's 
eyes looking down at me. 
" You know German ? " he asked sharply. 
" A dozen words," I said carelessly. " I've been to Wind- 
buk and learned enough to ask for my dinner. Peter — 
my friend — speaks it a bit." 
" So," said Stumm. " Well, get into the carriage. Not 
that one ! There, thickhead ! " 
I did as I was bid, he followed, and the door was locked 
behind us. The precaution was needless, for the sight of 
Stumm's profile at the platform end would have kept out the 
most brazen. I wondered if I had woke up his suspicions. 
I must be on my guard to show no signs of intelligence if he 
suddenly tried me in German, and that won'' ' '-•■ eas^' for 
I knew it as well as I knew Dutch. 
We moved into the country, but the windows were blurred 
with frost, and I saw nothing of the landscape. Stumm was 
busy with papers and let me alone. I read on a notice that 
one was forbidden to smoke, so to show my ignorance of 
German I pulled out my pipe. Stumm raised his head, saw 
what I was doing, and grufily bade me put it away, as if he 
were an old lady that dishked the sme 1 of tobacco. 
In half an hour I got very bored, for I had nothing to read 
and my pipe was verboten. People passed now and then in 
the corridors, but no one offered to enter. No doubt they 
saw the big figure in un'form and thought he was the deuce 
of a Staff swell who wanted solitude. I thought of stretching 
my legs in the corridor and was just getting up to do it, 
when somebody slid the door open and a big figure blocked 
the light. . 
He was wearing a heavy ulster and a green felt hat. He 
saluted Stumm who looked up angrily, and smiled pleasantly 
on us both. 
" Say, gentlemen," he said, " have you room in here for a 
little one ? I guess I'm about smoked out of my car by your 
brave soldiers. I've gotten a delicate stomach " 
Stumm had risen with a brow of wrath, and looked as if 
he were going to pitch the intruder off the train. Tlien he 
seemed to halt ancl collect himself, and the other's face broke 
into a friendly grin. 
" Why. it's Colonel Stumm," he cried. (He pronounced 
it "like the first syllable in "stomach.") "Very pleased to 
meet you again, Colonel. I had the honour of making vour 
acquaintance at our Embassy. I reckon Ambassaflor Gerard 
didn't cotton to our conversation that night." And the new 
comer plumped himself down in the corner opposite me. 
I had been pretty certain 1 would run across Blcnkiron 
somewhere in Germany, but I didn't think it would be so 
soon. There he sat staring at me with his full unseeing 
eyes, rolling out platitudes to Stumm who was nearly bursting 
in his effort to keep civil. I looked moody and suspicious, 
which I took to be the right fine. 
" Things are getting a bit dead at Salonika," said Mr. 
Blenkiron by way of a conversational opening. 
Stunnn pointed to a notice which warned officers to refrain 
from discussing military operations with mi.xed company in 
a railway carriage. 
" Sorry," said Blenkiron " I can't read that tombstone 
language of yours. But I reckon that, that notice to tres- 
passers, whatever it signifies, don't apply to you and me. 
I take it that this gentleman is in your party." 
I sat and scowled, fi.xing the American with suspicious 
eyes. 
" He is a Dutchman," said Stumm, " South African Dutch, 
and he is not happy, for he doesn't like to hear Enghsh 
spoken." 
" We'll shake on that," said Blenkiron cordially. " But 
who said I spoke English ? It's good American. Cheer up, 
friend, for it isn't the call that makes the big wapiti, as they 
say out west in my country. I hate John Bull worse than a 
poison rattle. The Colonel can tell you that." 
I daresay he could, but at that moment we slowed down 
at a station and Stumm got up to go out. " Good-day to 
you, Herr Blenkiron," he cried over his shoulder. " If you 
consider your comfort, don't talji English to strange travellers. 
They don't distinguish between the different brands." 
I followed him in a hurry, but was recalled by Blenkiron's 
V'Oice. 
" Say, friend," he cried, " you've left your grip," and he 
handed mc my bag from the luggage rack. But he showed no 
sign of recognition, and the last I saw of him was sitting sunk 
in a corner with his head on his chest as if he were going to 
sleep. He was a man who kept up his parts well. 
There was a motor-car waiting, one of the grey mihtary 
kind, and wc started at a terrific pace over bad forest roads. 
Stumm had put away his papers in a portfolio, and flung me 
a few sentences on the journey. 
" I haven't made up my mind about you, Brandt," he 
announced. " You may be a fool or a knave or a good man. 
If you are a knave we will shoot you." 
" And if 1 am a fool," I asked. 
" Send you to the Yser or theDvina. You will be respectable 
cannon-fodder." 
' " You cannot do that unless I consent," I said. 
" Can't we ? " he said, smiUng wickedly. " Remember 
you are a citizen of nowhere. Technically you are a rebel, 
and the British, if you go to them, will hang you, supposing 
they have any sense. You are in our power, my friend, to do 
precisely what we like with you." 
He was silent for a second, and then he said meditatively. 
" But I don't think you are a fool. You may be a scoundrel. 
Some kinds of scoundrels are useful enough. Other kinds are 
strung up with a rope. Of that we shall know more soon." 
" And if I am a good man ? 
'■ You will be given a chance to serve Germany, the proudest 
privilege a mortal can have." The strange man said this with 
a ringing sincerity in his voice that impressed me. 
The car swung out from the trees into a park lined with 
saplings and in the twilight I saw before me a biggish house 
like an overgrown Swiss chalet. There was a kind of archway 
with a sliam portcullis and a terrace with battlements, which 
looked as if they were made of stucco. We drew up at a 
Gothic front door where a thin middle-aged man in a shooting 
jacket was waiting. 
As we moved into the hghted hall I got a good look at our 
host. He was very lean and brown, wifTi the stoop in the 
shoulder that a man gets from being constantly on horseback. 
He had untidy grizzled hair and a ragged beard, and a pair 
of pleasant short-sighted brown eyes. 
" Welcome, my Colonel" he said. " Is this the friend you 
spoke of ? " 
" This is the Dutchman," said Stumm. " His name is 
Brandt ; Brandt, you see before you Herr Gaudian. 
I knew the name, of course ; there weren't many in my 
profession tliat didn't. He was one of the biggest railway 
engineers in the world, the man who had built the Bagdad 
and Syrian railways, and the new fines in German East Africa. 
I suppose he was about the greatest living authority on 
tropical construction. He knew the East and he knew 
Africa ; clearly I had been brought down for him to put me 
through my paces. 
A blond maidservant took me to my room, which had a 
bare polished floor, a stove, and windows that, unlike most 
of the German kind I had sampled, seemed made to open. 
When I had washed I descended to the hail, which was hung 
round with trophies of travel like Dervish jibbahs and Masai 
shields and one or two good buffalo heads. Presently a bell 
was rung. Stumm appeared witli his host, and we went into 
supper. 
