-O 
LAND & WATER 
October 20, igi6 
Greenmantle 
By John Buchan 
A Sequel to " The Thirty-Nine Steps " 
CHAPTER XX (continued) 
PETER waited till the lights both in the road and 
I he ditch came nearer, and then he gripped the 
edge with his left hand, where some stones gave 
him purchase, dug the toes of his boots into 
the wet soil, and stuck like a limpet. It needed some 
strength to keep the position for long, but the muscles of his 
arms and legs were like whipcord. 
The searcher in the ditch soon got tired, for the place was 
very wet, and joined his comrades on the road. They came 
along, running, flashing the lanterns into the trench, and 
exploring all the immediate countryside. 
Then rose a noise of wheels and horses from the opposite 
direction. Michael and the delayed wagons were approach- 
ing. They dashed up at a great pace, driven wildly, and for 
one horrid second Peter thought they were going to spill into 
tlie ditch at the very spot where he was concealed. The 
wheels passed so close to the edge that they almost grazed 
his fingers. Somebody shouted an order and they pulled 
up a yard or two nearer the bridge. The others came up 
and there was a consultation. 
Michael swore he had passed no one on the road. 
" That fool Hannus has seen a ghost," said the officer testily. 
It's too cold for this child's play." 
Hannus, almost in tears, repeated his tale. " The man 
spoke to me in good German," he cried. 
■ Ghost or no ghost he is safe enough up the road," said 
the oiilicer. " Kind God, that was a big one ! " He stopped 
and stared at a shell-burst, for the bombardment from the 
east was growing fiercer. 
They stood discussing the fire for a minute and presently 
moved off. Peter gave them two minutes' law and then 
clambered back to the highway and set off along it at a run. 
The noise of the shelling and the wind, together with the thick 
darkness made it safe to hurry. 
He left th^? road at the first chance and took to the broken 
country. The ground was now rising towards a spur of the 
Palantuken, on the far slope of which were the Turkish 
trenches. The night had begun by being pretty nearly as 
black as pitch ; even the smoke from the shell explosions, 
which is often visible in darkness, could not be seen. But 
as the wind blew the snow-clouds athwart the sky patches 
of stars came out. Peter had a compass, but he didn't need 
to use it, for he had a kind of " feel " for landscape, a special 
sense which is born in savages and can only be acquired after 
long experience by the white man. I believe he could smell 
where the north lay. He had settled roughly which part 
of the line he would try, merely because of its nearness to the 
enemy. But he might see reason to vary this, and as he 
moved he began to think that the safest place was where the 
shelUng was hottest. He didn't like the notion, but it sounded 
sense. 
Suddenly he began to puzzle over queer things in the 
ground, and, as he had never seen big guns before, it took 
him a moment to fix them. Presently one went off at his 
elbow with a roar like the Last Day. These were the Austrian 
howitzers — nothing over 8 inch, I fancy, but to Peter they 
looked Hke leviathans. Here, too, he saw for the first time a 
big and quite recent shell-hole, for the Russian guns were 
searching out the position. He was so interested in it all 
that he poked his nose where it shouldn't have been, and 
dropped plump into the pit behind a gun-emplacement. 
Gunners all the world over are the same — shy people, who 
hide themselves in holes and hibernate and mortally dislike 
being detected. 
A gniff voice cried " Wer da?" and a heavy hand seized 
his neck. 
Peter was ready with his story. He belonged to Michael's 
wagon-team and had been left behind. He wanted to be 
told the way to the sappers' camp. He was very apologetic, 
not to say obsequious. 
" It is one of those Prussian swine from the Marta Bridge," 
said a gunner. " Land him a kick to teach him sense. Beat 
to your right, mannikin, and you will find a road. And have 
a care when you get there, for the Russkoes are registering 
on it." 
Peter thanked them and bore off to the right. After that 
he kept a wary eye on the hosvitzers, and was thankful when 
he got out of their area on to the slopes up the hill. Hero 
was the type of country that was familiar to him, and he 
defied any Turk or Boche to spot him among the scrub and 
boulders. He was getting on very well, when once more, 
close to his ear, came a sound like tiie crack of doom. 
It was the field-guns now, and the sound of a field-gun 
close at hand is bad for the nerves if you aren't expecting it. 
Peter thought he iiad been hit, and lay flat for a httle to 
consider. Then he found the right explanation, and 
crawled forward very warily. 
Presently he saw his first Russian shell. It dropped half 
a dozen yards to his right, making a great hole in the snow 
and sending up a mass of mixed eartli, snow, and broken 
stones- Peter spat out the dirt and felt very solemn. You 
must remember that never in his life had he seen big shelling, 
and was now being landed in the thick of a first-class show 
without any preparation. He said he felt cold in his stomach, 
and very wishful to run away, if there had been anywhere 
to run to. But he kept on to the crest of the ridge, over 
which a big glow was broadening like a sunrise. He tripped 
once over a wire, which he took for some kind of snare, and 
after that went very warily. By and by he got his face between 
two boulders and looked over into the true battlefield. 
He told me it was exactly what the predikant used to say 
that Hell would be like. About fifty yards down the slope 
lay the Turkish trenches — they were quite dark against the 
snow, and now and then a black figure like a devil showed for 
an instant and disappeared. The Turks clearly exf)ected an 
infantry attack, for they were sending up calcium rockets 
and Verey flares. The Russians were battering their line 
and spraying all the hinterland, not with shrapnel, but with 
good solid high-explosives. The place would be as bright 
as day for a moment, all smothered in a scurry of smoke and 
snow and debris, and then a black pall would fall on it, when 
only the thunder of the guns told of the battle. 
Peter felt very sick. He had not believed there could be 
so much noise in the world, and the drums of his ears were 
splitting. Now, for a man to whom courage is habitual, the 
taste of fear — naked, utter fear — is a horrible thing. It 
seemed to wash away all his manhood. Peter lay on the 
crest, watching the shells burst, and confident that any 
moment he might be a shattered remnant. He lay and 
reasoned with himself, calling himself every name he could 
think of, but conscious that nothing would get rid of that 
lump of ice below his heart. 
Then he could stand it no longer. He got up and ran for 
his life. 
But he ran forward. 
It was the craziest performance. He went hell-for-leather 
over a piece of ground which was being watered with H.E., 
but by the mercy of Heaven nothing hit him. He took some 
fearsome tosses in shell-holes, but partly erect and partly on 
all fours he did the fifty yards and tumbled into a Turkish 
trench right on the top of a dead man. 
The contact with that body brought him to his senses. 
That men could die at all seemed a comforting, homely thing 
after that unnatural pandemonium. The next moment a 
crump took the parapet of the trench some yards to his left,, 
and he was half buried in an avalanche. 
He crawled out of that, pretty badly cut about the head. 
He was quite cool now and thinking hard about his next 
step. There were men all around him, sullen dark faces 
as he saw them when the flares went up. They were manning 
the parapets and waiting tensely for something else than the 
shelling. They paid no attention to him, for I fancy in that 
trench units were pretty well mixed up and under a bad 
bombardment no one bothers about his neighbours. He 
found himself free to move as he pleased. The ground of the 
trench was littered with empty cartridge-cases, and there 
were many dead bodies. 
The last shell, as I have said, had played havoc with the 
parapet. In the next spell of darkness Peter crawled tlirough 
the gap and twisted among some snowy hillocks. He was 
no longer afraid of shells, any more than he was afraid of a 
veld thunderstorm. But he was wondering very hard now 
how he should ever get to the Russians. The Turks were 
behind him now, but there was the biggest danger in front. 
Then the artillery ceased. It was so sudden that he 
thought he had gone deaf, and could hardly realise the blessed 
(Continued on page 22.) 
