August 31, 1916 
LAND & WATER 
Greenmantle 
By John Buchan 
A Sequel to " The Thirty-Nine Steps'' 
19 
Synopsis : Richard Hannay, who obtained a commission 
tn 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 with Turkey and 
Germany. The only clue is a scrap of paper bearing 
ilic words, Kasredin — cancer — v. I. This was handed 
to the British headquarters in Mesopotamia by an officer 
— Sir Walter's son — wounded to death in obtaining it. 
Hannay tmdertakes the mission, his friend Sandy [the Hon. 
L. G. Arbuthnot) agrees to help hitn. Sir Walter intro- 
duces him to an American gentleman, John S. Blenkiron. 
a strong pro-Ally, who also joins them. On November ijth 
the three dine together at a London flat, and agree to 7net 
in a cafe in a b.ick 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 Rhodcsian friend, Peter Pienaar, who agrees to b? 
his companion. They go on to Germafiy and find their 
'way to Berlin. Here they have an interview with tivo 
Government high officials : one. Colonel von Stumm, had 
bsen in Germm South-West Africa, fighting 'he Hereros. 
Stumm takes them in charge, leaves Pienaar in Berlin, but 
brings Hannay 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 bM 
for it. He hides in the forest, and stricken with malaria lies 
perdu for some days in a woodcutter' s hut. Finally he 
reaches tJie Danube and gets taken on as an engineer on 
bmrd a steamer that is tugging bxrges of munitions from 
Essen to Rustchuk. On the journey down the Danubi 
Pienaar, having escaped from a prison camp, rejoins 
Hannay on the boat, and on arrival at Constantinople they ' 
are saved from a Turkish rabble by a weird individual who 
regards the offer of a sovereign for his services as an insult. 
CHAPTER XI [continued) 
PETER and I, with a common impulse, took to 
our heels. We were not looking for any trouble with 
demoniacs. Up that steep narrow lane we ran with 
that bedlamite crowd at our heels. The torches 
seemed to have gone out, for the place was black as pitch 
and we tumbled over heaps of offal and splashed through 
running drains. The men were close behind us and more 
than once I felt a stick on my shoulder. But fear lent us 
wi-ngs and suddenly, before us was a blaze pi light and we 
saw the debouchment of our street on a main thoroughfare. 
The others saw it too, for they slackened off. Just before 
we reached the light we stopped and looked round. There 
was no sound or sight behind us in the black lane which 
dipped to the harbour. 
-T.This is a queer country, Cornells, " said Peter, feeling his 
limbs for bruises. " Too many things happen in too short a 
time. I am breathless." 
The big street we had struck seemed to run along the crest 
of the hill. There were lamps in it, and crawling cabs, and 
quite civilised looking shops. We soon found the hotel to 
which Kuprasso had directed us, a big place in a courtyard 
with a very tumble-down looking portico, and green sun 
slmtters which rattled drearily in the winter's wind. It 
proved, as I feared, to be packed to the door, mostly with 
German officers. With some trouble I got an interview with 
the proprietor, the usual Greek, and told him that we had been 
sent f^here by Mr. Kuprasso. That didn't affect him in the 
least, and we would have been shot into the street if I hadn't 
remembered about Stumm's pass. 
So I explained that we had come from Germany with 
munitions, and only wanted rooms for one night. I showed 
him the pass and blustered a good deal, till he became civil 
and said he would do the best he could for us. 
That best was pretty poor. Peter and I were doubled up 
in a small oom which contained two camp beds and little 
else, and had broken windows through which the wind whistled. 
We got a wretched dinner of stringy mutton boiled with 
vegetables and a white cheese strong enough to raise the 
dead. But I got a bottle of whisky, for wjiich I paid a 
sovereign, and we managed to liglit the stove in our room, 
fasten the shutters, and warm our hearts with a brew of toddy. 
After that we went to bed and slept like logs for twelve hours. 
On the road from Rustchuk we had had uneasy slumbers. 
I woke next morning and, looking out from the broken 
window, saw that it was snowing. With a lot of trouble I 
got hold of a servant and made him bring us some of the 
treacly Turkish coffee. We were both in pretty low spirits. 
" Europe is a poor cold place," said Peter, " not worth 
fighting for. There is only one white man's land, and that 
is South Africa." At the time I heartily agreed with him. 
I remember that, sitting on the edge of my bed, I took stock 
of our position. It was not very cheering. We seemed to 
have been amassing enemies at a furious pace. First of all, 
there was Rasta, whpm I had insulted and who wouldn't 
forget it in a hurry. He had his crowd of Turkish riff-raff, 
and was bound to get us sooner or later. Then there was the 
maniac in the skin hat. He didn't like Rasta, and I made a 
guess tliat he and his weird friends were of some party hostile 
to the Young Turks. But, on the other hand, he didn't like 
us, and there would be bad trouble the next time we met him. 
Finally, there was Stumm and the German Government. It 
could only be a matter of hours at the best before he got the 
Rustchuk authorities on our trail. It would be easy to trace 
us from Chataldja, and once they had us we were absolutely 
done. There was a big black dossier against us which by no 
conceivable piece of luck could be upset. 
It was very clear to me that unless we could find sanctuary 
and shed all our various purs.uers during this day we should be 
done in for good and all. But where on earth were we to find 
sanctuary ? We had neither of us a word of the language, and 
there was no way I could see of taking on new characters. 
For that we wanted friends and help, and I could think of none 
anywhere. Somewhere, to be sure, there was Blenkiron, but 
how could we get into touch with him ? As for Sandy, I had 
pretty well given him up. I always thought his enterprise 
the craziest of the lot, and bound to fail. He was probably 
somewhere in Asia Minor, and a month or two later would 
get to Constantinople and hear in some pothouse the yarn of 
the two wretched Dutchmen who had disappeared so soon from 
men's sight. 
That rendezvous at Kuprasso's was no good. It wo\ild 
have been all right if we had got here unsuspected, and could 
have gone on quietly frequenting the place till Blenkiron 
picked us up. But to do that we wanted leisure and secrecy, 
and here we were with a pack of hounds at our heels. The 
place was horribly dangerous already. If we showed our- 
sslves there we should be gathered in by Rasta, or by the 
German military police, or by the madman in the skin cap. 
It was a stark impossibihty to hang about on the offchance 
of meeting Blenkiron. 
I reflected with some bitterness that this was the 17th day of 
January, the day of our assignation. I had had high hopes 
all the way down the Danube of meeting with Blenkiron — 
for I knew he would be in time — of giving him the information 
I had had the good fortune to collect, of piecing it together 
with what he had found out, and of getting the whole story 
which Sir Walter hungered for. After that I thought it 
wouldn't be hard to get away by Rumania and to get home 
through Russia. I had hoped to be back with my battalion 
in February, having done as good a bit of work as anybody 
in the war. As it was, it looked as if my information would 
die with me, unless I could find Blenkiron before the evening. 
I talked the thing over with Peter and he agreed that we 
were fairly up against it. We decided to go to Kuprasso's 
that afternoon and to trust to luck for the rest. It wouldn't 
do to wander about the streets, so we sat tight in our room 
all morning, and swopped old hunting yarns to keep our 
minds from the beastly present. We got some food at mid-day 
— cold mutton and the same cheese, and finished our whisky. 
Then I paid the bill, for I didn't dare to stay there another 
night. About half-past three we went into the street, without 
the foggiest notion where we could find our next quarters, i 
It was snowing heavily, which was a piece of luck for us. 
Poor old Peter had no greatcoat, so we went into a Jew's 
shop and bought a ready-made abomination, which looked as 
if it might have been meant for a dissenting parson. It was 
no use saving my money when the future was so black. The 
