LAND & WATER 
October 5, igi6 
Greenmantle 
By John Buchan 
A Sequel to " The Thirty-Nine Steps " 
Synopsis : Rickard Hannay is asked by Sir Walter 
BuUivant of the Foreign Office, to uHderiake a fuisston to 
unearth a secret connected with Turkey and Germany. The 
only clue is a scrap of paper bearing the words, Kasredin 
—cancer— V.I. Hannay undertakes the mission; his 
friend Sandy {the Hon. L. G. Arbuthnot) agrees to help 
him. Sir Walter introduces him to an American, John S. 
Blenkiron, a strong pro-Ally, who joins them. Three 
months later they meet in Constantinople, Hannav having 
reached there by way of the Danube, accompanied by a 
Rhodesian friend, Peter Pienaar, after many adventures 
m Germany. Blenkiron also goes by way «f Germany, 
and Sandy arrives at Constantinople disguised as a Ma- 
hommedan fanatic. After the three meet, Hannay, who has 
previously posed as a Boer from Western Cape Colony, 
assumes the character of an American engineer. Riding 
one evening an the outskirts of Constantinople with Pienaar 
they lose their way and find themselves in total darkness in 
a garden. Here Hannay, by chance, meets Sandy in 
disguise. While talking, a big car drives up in which a 
German lady, Hilda von Einem, is seated ; this woman 
holds a clue to tlie secret. She drives Hannay to her 
house where she questions him, and on the morrow visits 
him at his house in Constantinople and subsequently pro- 
vides him with passports for Mesopotamia. Hannay, 
Blenkiron and Pienaar travel together. At Angora they 
hire a motor-car ; after a day's journey the axle breaks as 
night falls atui they sleep in a tumbledown farm. 
CHAPTER XVI {continue^ 
THAT night, I remember, I had a queer dream. I 
seemed to be in a wild place among mountains, 
and I was being hunted, though who was after 
me I couldn't tell. I remember sweating with 
frigat, for I seemed to be quite alone and the terror 
that was pursuing me was more than human. The 
place was horribly quiet and still, and there was deep snow 
lying everywhere, so that each step I took was heavy as lead. 
A very ordinary sort of nightmare, .you will say. Yes, but 
there was one strange feature in this one. The night was 
pitch dark, but ahead of me in the throat of the pass there was 
one patch of light, and it showed a rum little hill with a rocky 
top : what we call in South Africa a caslrol or saucepan. I had 
a notion that if I could get to that casirol I should be safe, and 
I panted through the drifts towards it with the avenger of blood 
at my heels. I woke gasping, to find the winter morning 
struggling through the cracked rafters, and to hear Blenkiron 
say cheerily that his duodenum had behaved all night like a 
gentleman. I lay still for a bit trying to fix the dream, but 
It all dissolved into haze except the picture of the little hill, 
which was quite clear in every detail. I told myself it was 
a reminiscence of the veld, some spot down in the Wakker- 
stroom country, though for the life of me I couldn't place it. 
I pass over the next three days, for they were one unin- 
terrupted series of heart-breaks. Hussin and Peter scoured 
the country for horses, Blenkiron sat in the bam and played 
Patience while I haunted the roadside near the bridge in 
the hope of picking up some kind of conveyance. My task 
was perfectly futile. The columns passed, casting wondering 
eyes on the wrecked car among the frozen rushes, but they 
could offer no help. My friend the Turkish officer promised 
to wire to Angora from some place or other for a fresh car, but, 
remembering the state of affairs at Angora, I had no hope 
from that quarter. Cars passed, plenty of them, packed with 
staff-officers, Turkish and German, but they were in far too 
big a hurry even to stop and speak. The only conclusion 
I reached from the roadside vigils was that things were getting 
very warm in the neighbourhood of Erzerum. Everybody on 
that road seemed to be in mad haste either to get there or to 
get away. 
Hussin was the best chance, for, as I have said, the Com- 
panions had a very special and peculiar graft throughout the 
Turkish Empire. But the first day he came back empty- 
handed. All the horses had been commandeered for the 
war, he said ; and though he was certain that some had 
been kept back and hidden away, he could not get on their 
track. The second day he returned with two — miserable 
screws and deplorably short in the wind from a diet of beans. 
There was no decent corn or hay left in that countryside- 
The third day he picked up a nice little Arab stallion : in 
poor condition, it is true, but perfectly sound. For these 
beasts we paid good money, for Blenkiron was well supplied 
and we had no time to spare for the Oriental bargaining. 
Hussin said he had cleaned up the countryside and I 
believed him. I dared not delay another day, even though it 
meant leaving him behind. But he had no notion of doing 
anything of the kind. He was a good runner, he said, and 
could keep up with such horses as ours for ever. If this was 
the manner of our progress, I reckoned we would be weeks in 
getting to Erzerum. 
We started at dawn on the morning of the fourth day, after 
the old farmer had blessed us and sold us some stale rye 
bread. Blenkiron bestrode the Arab, being the heaviest, 
and Peter and I had the screws. My worst forebodings were 
soon realised, and Hussin, loping along at my side, had an 
easy job to keep up with Us. We were about as slow as an 
ox-wagon. The brutes were unshod, and with the rough 
roads I saw that their feet would very soon go to pieces. \Ve 
jogged along hke a tinker's caravan, about five miles to the 
hour, as feckless a party as ever disgraced a high road. 
The weather was now a cold drizzle, which increased my 
depression. Cars passed us and disappeared in the mist, 
going at thirty miles an hour to mock our slowness. None 
of us spoke, for the futihty of the business clogged our spirits. 
I bit hard on my lip to curb my restlessness, and I tlunk 
I would have sold my soul there and then for anything that 
could move fast. I don't know any sorer trial than to be mad 
for speed and have to crawl at a snail's pace. I was getting 
ripe for any kind of desperate venture. 
About midday we descended on a wide plain full of the 
marks of rich cultivation. Villages became frequent, and 
the land was studded with ohve groves and scarred with water 
furrows. From what T remembered of the map I judged that 
we were coming to that champaign country near Siwas, which is 
the granary of Turkey, and the home of the true Osmanli stock. 
Then at a turning of the road we came to the caravanserai. 
Jt was a dingy, battered place, with the pink plaster falling 
in patches from its walls. There was a courtj'ard abutting 
on the road, and a fiat-topped house with a big hole in its 
side. It was a long way from any battle-ground, and I 
guessed that some explosion had wrought the damage. Be- 
hind it, a few hundred yards off, a detachment of cavalry were 
encamped beside a stream, with their horses tied up in long 
lines of pickets. 
And by the roadside, quite alone and deserted, stood a large 
new motor-car. 
In all the road before and behind there was no man to be 
seen except the troops by the stream. The owners, whoever 
they were, must be inside the caravanserai. 
I have said I was in the mood for some desperate deed, 
and lo and behold Providence had given me the chance ! I 
coveted that car as I have never coveted anything on earth. 
At the moment all my plans had narrowed down to a feverish 
passion to get to the battle-field. We had to find Green- 
mantle at Erzerum, and once there we should have Hilda 
von Einem 's protection. It was a time of war, and a front 
of brass was the surest safety. But, indeed, I could not 
figure out any plan worth speaking of. I saw only one tliinp 
— a fast car which might be ours. 
I said a word to the others, and we dismounted and tethered 
our horses at the near end of the court-yard. " I heard the low 
hum of voices from the cavalrymen by the stream, but thry 
were three hundred yards off and could not see us. Peter 
was sent forward to scout in the fourtyard. In the building 
itself there was but one window looking on the road, and that 
was in the upper floor. Meantime I crawled along beside 
the wall to where the car stood, and had a look at it. It was 
a splendid six-cylinder aff n. brand-new, with the tyres 
little worn. There were seven tirs of petrol stacked behind, 
as well as spare tyres, and, looking in, I saw map-cases and 
field-glasses strewn on the seats ns if the owners had only got 
out for a minute to stretc 1 ihei le^s. 
Peter came back and reported ti at the courtyard was 
empty. " There are men in the upper room," he said ; 
" more than one, for I heard their voirc^ They are moving 
about restlessly, and may soon be coming out." 
I reckoned that there was no time to be lost, so I told the 
(Conlitiued on page 22.) 
