20 
LAND & WATER 
September 7, 1916 
{Continued Irotn page i8) 
moved away I saw the Turkish policeman pick it up and put 
It inside his cap. 
We returned by the long street on the crest of the hill. 
There was a man selling oranges on a tray and Blenkiron 
-topped to look at them. I noticed that the man shuffled 
lifteen into a cluster. Blenkiron felt the oranges, as if to see 
that they were sound, and puslied two aside. The man 
instantly restored them to the group, never raising his eyes. 
" This ain't the time of year to buy fruit," said Blenkiron 
as we fwssed on. " Those oranges are rotten as medlars." 
We were almost on our own doorstep before I guessed the 
meaning of the business. 
Is your morning's work finished ? " I asked. 
" Our mi>rnings walk ? " he asked innocently. 
" I said ' work." " 
He smiled blandly. " I reckoned you'd tumble to it. 
Why, yes, e.xcept that I've some figuring still to do. Give 
me half an hour and I'll be at your service. Major." 
That afternoon, after Peter had cooked a wonderfully good 
luncheon, I had a heart-to-heart talk with Blenkiron. 
" My business is to get noos," he said, " and before I start 
in a stunt I make considerable preparations. All the time 
in London when I was yelping at the British Government 
I was busy with Sir Walter arranging things ahead. We 
used to meet in queer places and at all hours of the night. 
I fi.xed up a lot of connections in this city before I arrived, and 
esjX'cially a noos service with your I-'oreign Office by way of 
Kumania and Russia. In a day or two I guess our friends 
will know all about our discoveries." 
At that I opened my eyes very wide. 
" Why, yes. You Britishers haven't any notion how 
wideawake your intelligence service is. I reckon it's easy the 
best of all the belligerents. You never talked about it in 
peace time, and you shunned the theatrical ways of the 
Teuton. But you had the wires laid good and sure. I 
calculate there isn't much that happens in any comer of the 
earth that ywu don't know within twenty-four hours. I don't 
say your higlibrows use the noos well. I don't take much 
stock in your pcjlitical push. They're a lot of siher-tongues, 
no doubt, but it ain't oratory that is wanted in this racket. 
The William Jennings Bryan stunt languishes in wartime. 
Politics is like a chicken-coop and those inside get to behave 
as if their little run were all the world. But if the politicians 
make mistakes it isn't from lack of good instruction to 
guide their steps. If I had a big proposition to handle and 
could have my pick of hclpt>rs, I'd plump for the Intelligenci' 
Department of the British Giovernment. Yes, sir, I take 
off my hat to your Government sleuths." 
" Did they provide you with ready-made spies here ? " I 
asked in astonishment. 
" Why, no," he said. " But they gave me the key and I 
could make my own arrangements. In Germany I buried 
myself deep in the local atmosphere, and never peeped out. 
That was my game, for I was looking for something in Ger- 
many itself, and didn't want any foreign cross-bearings. As 
you know, I failed where you succeeded. But so soon as I 
crossed the Danube I set about opening up my lines of com- 
munication, and I hadn't been two days in this metropolis 
before I had got my telephone exchange" buzzing. Sometime 
I'll explain the thing to you, for it's a pretty Uttle business. 
I've got the cutest cypher. ... No, it ain't my inven- 
tion. It's your Government's. Any one — babe, imbecile, 
or dotard, can carry my messages— you saw some of them 
to-day. But it takes some mind to set the piece, and it takes 
a lot of figuring at my end to work out the results. Some- 
day you shall hear it all, for I guess it would please you." 
" How do you use it ? " I asked. 
" Well, I get early noos of what is going on in this cabbage- 
patch. Likewise, I get authentic noos of the rest of Europe, 
and I can send a message to Mr. X in Petrograd and Mr. Y. 
in London, or, if I wish, to Mr. Z. in Noo York. What's the 
matter with that for a post-office. • I'm the best-informed man 
in Constantinople, for old General Liman only hears one side 
and mostly lies at that, and Enver prefers not to listen at all. 
" I want you to tell me one thing, Blenkiron," I said. " I've 
been playing a part for the past month, and it wears my 
ner%es to tatters. Is this job very tiring, for if it is. 1 doubt 
I may buckle up." 
He looked thoughtful. " I can't call our business an 
absolute rest-cure any time. You've got to keep your eyes 
skinned, and there's always the risk of the little packet of 
dynamite going off unexpected. But as these things go, I 
rate this stunt as easy. We've only got to be natural. We 
and taking cocktails with Mr. Carl Rosenheim, and next 
hour being engaged trying to blow Mr. Rosenheim's friends 
sky high. And it isn't e.isy to keep up a part which is ckan. 
outside your ordinary normal personality. You have tried 
that. Major, and I guess you found it wearing." 
" Wearing's a mild word," I said. " But I want to know 
another thing. It seems to me that the line you've picked 
is as good as could be. But it's a cast-iron line. It commits 
us pretty deep, and it won't be a simple job to drop it." 
" Why, that's just the point I was coming to," he said. 
I was going to put you wise about that very thing. When. 
I started out I figured on some situation like this. I argued 
that unless I had a very clear part with a big bluff in it I 
wouldn't get the confidences which I needed. We've got to- 
be at the heart of the show, taking a real hand and not just 
looking on. So I settled 1 would be a big engineer- there was 
a time when there wasn't any bigger in the United States than 
John S. Blenkiron. I talked large about what might be done 
in Mesopotamia in the way of washing the British down the 
river. Well, that talk caught on. They knew of my reputa- 
tion as a hydraulic expert, and they were tickled to death to 
rope me in. I told them I wanted a helper, and I told them 
about my friend Richard Hanau, as good a German as ever 
supped sauerkraut, who was coming through Russia and 
Rumania as a benevolent neutral, but when he got to Con- 
stantinople would drop his neutrality and double his bene- 
\'olence. They got reports on you by wire from the States — 
I arranged that before I left London. So you're going to be 
welcomed and taken to their bosoms just like John S. was. 
We've both got jobs we can hold down, and now you're in 
these pretty clothes you're the dead ringer of the brightest 
kind of .\merican engineer. . . . But we can't go back on 
our tracks. If we wanted to leave for Constanza next week 
they'd be very polite, but they'd never let us. 'We've got to 
go on with this adventure and nose our way down into Mesopo- 
tamia, hoping that our luck will hold. . . . God knows 
how we will get out of it. But it's no good going out to meet 
trouble. As I observed before, I believe m an all-wise and 
beneficent Providence, but you've got to give Him a chance." 
I am bound to confess the prospect staggered me. We 
might be let in for fighting— and worse than fighting— against 
our own side. I wondered if it wouldn't be better to make a 
bolt for it, and said so. 
He shook his head. " I reckon not. In the first place, we 
haven't finished our enquiries. We've got Greenmantle 
located right enough, thanks to you, but we still know mighty 
little about that holy man. In the second place, it won't be 
as bad as you think. This show lacks cohesion, sir. It is not 
going to last for ever. I calculate that before you and I strike 
the site of the garden that Adam and Eve frequented there 
will be a queer turn of affairs. Anyhow, it's good enough to 
gamble on." 
Then he got some sheets of paper and drew me a plan of 
the disposition of the Turkish forces. I had no notion he 
was such a close student of war, for his exposition was as 
good as a staff lecture. He made out that the situation was 
none too bright anywhere. The troops released from Galli- 
poh wanted a lot of refitment, and would be slow in reaching 
the Transcaucasan frontier, where the Russians were threaten- 
ing. The army of Syria was pretty nearly a rabble under the 
iunatic Djemal. There wasn't the foggiest chance of an in- 
vasion of Egypt being undertaken. Only in Mesopotamia 
did things look fairly cheerful, owing to the blunders of the 
Bntish strategy. " And you make take it from me," he said, 
" that if the old Turk mobilised a total of a million men, he 
has lost 40 per cent, of them already. And if I'm anything 
of a prophet he's going pretty soon to lose more." 
_ He tore up the papers and enlarged on politics. " I reckon 
I've got tlie measure of the Young Turks and their precious 
Committee. Those boys aren't any good. Enver's bright 
enough, and for sure he's got sand. He'll stick out a fight like 
a 'Vermont game-chicken, but he lacks the larger vi.sion. sir. 
He doesn't understand the intricacies of the job no more than 
a suckhng child, so the Germans play with him, till his temper 
goes and he bucks like a mule. Talaat is a sulky dog who 
wants to go for mankind with a club. Both these boys would 
have made good cow-punchers in the old days, and they 
might have got a living out West as the gun-men of a. Labour 
Union. They're about the class of Jesse James or Bill the 
Kid, excepting that they're college-reared and can patter 
languages. But they haven't the organising power to managb 
the Insh vote in a ward election. Tlieir one notion is to get 
busy with their fireirons, and people are getting tired of the 
Black Hand stunt. Their hold on the country is just the 
wear our natural clothes and talk English and sport a Teddy hold that a man with a Browning as over a^rowd 
Roosevelt smile, and there isn't any call for theatrical talent w^iIkHn^r .tirW Th„ .^.1,., u^^a^ f Jtl nJI?^.^. 
any call for theatrical talent. 
Where I've found the job tight was when I had got to be 
natural, and my naturalness was the same brand as that of 
everybody round about, and all the time I had to do un- 
natural things. It isn't easy to be going down to.vn to business 
witl> 
walking sticks. The cooler heads in the Committee are 
growing shy of them, and an old fox hke Djavid Ls lying low 
till his time comes. Now it doesn't want arguing that a"gang 
of that kind has got to hang close together or they mav liang 
separately. They've got no grip on the ordinary " Turk, 
