August 24, lyi6 
LAND & WATER 
19 
Greenmantle 
By John Buchan 
A Sequel to " The Thirty-Nine Steps" 
Synopsis : Richard Hannay, who obtained a commission 
in the new army and was wounded at Loos is asked by 
Sir Walter Bullivant of the Foreign Office, to undertake 
a mission to unearth a secret connected ivith Turkey and 
Germany. The only clue is a scrap of paper bearing 
the words, Kasredin — cancer — v.T. This tvas 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. Arbuthnot) agrees to help him. Sir Walter intro- 
duces him to an American gentleman, John S. Blcnkiron. 
a strong pro-Ally, who also joins them. On November ijth 
the three dine together at a London flat, and agree to met 
in a cafe in a back street of Constantinople two months 
later-^'-on January lyth. Sandy goes to Constantinople, 
disguised as a Turk, by way of Cairo. Blenkiron drops into 
Germany by way of Scandinavia. Hannay, who in South 
Africa was 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 meets 
his old Rhodesian friend, Peter Pienaar, to whom he un- 
folds his plans. Peter agrees to be his companion. They 
go on to Germany and find their way to Berlin. Here 
they have an interview with two Government high officiUls : 
one, Colonel von Stumm, had been in German South-West 
Africa, fighting the Hereros. Stumm takes them in charge, 
leaves Pienaar in Berlin, but brings Hannay to a big house 
in the country, where he is introduced to Herr Gaudian, 
" one of the biggest railway engineers in the world." Stumm 
takes him on to his castle in Bavaria. On the way Hannay 
has an interview with the Kaiser. In the evening Stumm 
grossly insults Hannay who knocks him out and makes a bolt 
for it. He hides in the forest, and stricken with malaria lies 
perdu for some days in a woodcutter' s hut. Finally he 
reaches the Danube and gets taken on as an engineer on 
board a steamer that is tugging barges of munitions from 
Essen to Rustchuk. On the journey down the Danube 
Pienaar, having escaped from a prison camp, rejoins 
Hannay on the boat, and on arrival at Belgrade Hannay 
sees Blenkiron on the quay in company with a group of 
German and Austrian officers. 
CHAPTER X. 
The Garden House of Suliman the Red. 
WE reached Rustchuk on the loth, but by no means 
landed on that day. Something had gone wrong 
with I he unloading arrangements, or more likely 
with the railway behind them, and we were kept 
swinging all day well out in the turbid river. On the top of 
this Captain Schenk got an ague, and by that evening was a 
blue and shivering wreck. He had done me well and I reckoned 
I would stand by him. So I got his ship's papers, and the 
manifests of cargo, and undertook to see to the transhipment. 
It wasn't the first time I had tackled that kind of business, 
and I hadn't much to learn about steam cranes. I told him 
1 was going on to Constantinople, and would take Peter 
with me, and he was agreeable. He would have to wait at 
Rustchuk to get his return cargo, and could easily inspan a 
fresh engineer. 
I worked about the hardest twenty-four hours of my life 
getting the stuff ashore. The landing officer was a Bulgarian, 
quite a competent man if he could have made the railways 
give him the trucks he needed. There was a collection of 
hungry German transport officers always putting in their 
oars, and being infernally insolent to everybody. I took the 
high and mighty line with them, and as I had the Bulgarian 
commandant on my side after about two hours' blasphemy 
got them quieted. 
But the big trouble came the ne.xt morning when I had got 
nearly all the stuff aboard the trucks. 
A young officer in what I took to be a Turkisii uniform 
rode up with an aide-de-camp. I noticed the German guards 
saluting him, so 1 judged he was rather a swell. Ho came 
up to me and asked me very civilly in German for the way- 
bills. 1 gave him them and he looked carefully tlirough them. 
marking certain items with a blue pencil. Then he coolly 
handed them to his A.D.C., and spoke to him in Turkish. 
" Look here, I want those back," I said. " I can't do 
without them, and we've no time to waste." 
" Presently," he said, smiling, and went ofif. 
I said nothing, reflecting that the stuff was for the Turks, 
and they naturally had to have some say in its handling. 
The loading was practically finished when my gentleman 
returned. He handed me a neatly-typed new set of way- 
bills. One glance at them showed that some of the big 
items had been left out. 
" Here this won't do," I cried. " Give me back the right 
set. This thing's no good to me." 
For answer he winked gently, smiled like a dusky seraph, 
and held out his hand. In it I saw a roll of money. 
" For yourself," he said. " It is the usual custom." 
It was the first time an3'one had ever tried to bribe me, 
and it made me boil up like a geyser. I saw his game clearly 
enough. Turkey would pay for the lot to Germany, pro- 
bably had already paid the bill. But she would pay double 
for the things not on the way-bills and pay to this fellow and 
his friends. This struck me as rather steep even for Oriental 
methods of doing business. 
" Now look here, sir," I said. " I don't stir from this 
place till I get the correct way-bills. If you won't give me 
them, I will have every item out of the trucks and make a 
new list. But a correct list I'll have, or the stuff stays here 
till Doomsday." 
He was a slim, foppish fellow and he looked more puzzled 
than angry. 
" I offer you enough," he said, again stretching out his hand. 
At that I fairly roared. " If you try to bribe me, you 
damned haberdasher, I'll have you off that horse and chuck 
you in the river." 
He no longer misunderstood me. He began to curse and 
threaten, but I cut him short. 
" Come along to the Commandant, my boy," I said, and I 
marched away, tearing up his type-written sheets as I went and 
strewing them behind me like a paper chase. 
We had a fine old racket in the Commandant's office. I 
said it was my business, as representing the German Govern- 
ment, to see the stuff delivered to the consignee at Con- 
stantinople ship-shape and Bristol-fashion. I told him it 
wasn't my habit to proceed with cooked documents. He 
couldn't but agree with me, but there was that wrathful 
Oriental with his face as fixed as a Buddha. 
" I am sorry, Rasta Bey," he said, " but this man is in the 
right." 
" I have authority from the Comrnittee to receive the 
stores," he said sullenly. 
" Those are not my instructions," was the answer. " They 
are consigned to the Artillery Commandant at Chataldja, 
General von Oesterzee."' 
The man shrugged his shoulders. " Very well. I will have 
a word to say to General von Oesterzee and many to this fellow 
who flouts the Committee." And he strode away like an 
impudent boy. 
"The harassed Commandant grinned. " You've offended 
his Lordship, and he is a bad enemy. All those damned 
Comitadjes are. You would be well advised not to go on to 
Constantinople." 
" And have that blighter in the red hat loot the trucks 
on the road. No thank you. I am going to see them safe 
at Chataldja or whatever they call the artillery depot." 
I said a good deal more, but that is an abbreviated transla- 
tion of my remarks. My word for " blighter " was trottel, 
but I used some other expressions which would have ravished 
my Young Turk friend to hear. Looking back, it seems 
pretty ridiculous to have made all this fuss about guns which 
were going to be used against my own people. But I didn't 
see that at the time. My professional pride was up in arms 
and I couldn't bear to have a hand in a crooked deal. 
" Well, I advise you to go armed," said the Commandant. 
" You will have a guard for the trucks, of course, and I will 
pick you good men. They may hold you up all the same. 
I can't help you once you are past the frontier, but I'll send 
a wire to Oesterzee and he'll make trouble if anything goes 
wrong. I still think you would have been wiser to humour 
Rasta Bey." 
As I was leaving he gave me a telegram. " Here's a wire 
