Greenmantle - John Buchan

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deaf to the sound. Stumm had seen us cross the parapet, and he started to sprinkle all the surroundings of the castrol. Blenkiron and I lay like a workingparty between the lines caught by machine-guns, taking a pull on ourselves as best we could. Sandy had some kind of cover, but we were on the bare farther slope, and the riflemen on that side might have had us at their mercy. But no shots came from them. As I looked east, the hillside, which a little before had been held by our enemies, was as empty as the desert. And then I saw on the main road a sight which for a second time made me yell like a maniac. Down that glen came a throng of men and galloping limbers—a crazy, jostling crowd, spreading away beyond the road to the steep slopes, and leaving behind it many black dots to darken the snows. The gates of the South had yielded, and our friends were through them. At that sight I forgot all about our danger. I didn't give a cent for Stumm's shells. I didn't believe he could hit me. The fate which had mercifully preserved us for the first taste of victory would see us through to the end. I remember bundling Blenkiron along the hill to find Sandy. But our news was anticipated. For down our own side-glen came the same broken tumult of men. More; for at their backs, far up at the throat of the pass, I saw horsemen— the horsemen of the pursuit. Old Nicholas had flung his cavalry in. Sandy was on his feet, with his lips set and his eye abstracted. If his face hadn't been burned black by weather it would have been pale as a dish-clout. A man like him doesn't make up his mind for death and then be given his life again without being wrenched out of his bearings. I thought he didn't understand what had happened, so I beat him on the shoulders. 'Man, d'you see?' I cried. 'The Cossacks! The Cossacks! God! How they're taking that slope! They're into them now. By heaven, we'll ride with them! We'll get the gun horses!' A little knoll prevented Stumm and his men from seeing what was happening farther up the glen, till the first wave of the rout was on them. He had gone on bombarding the castrol and its environs while the world was cracking over his head. The gun team was in the hollow below the road, and down the hill among the boulders we crawled, Blenkiron as lame as a duck, and me with a limp left arm.
The poor beasts were straining at their pickets and sniffing the morning wind, which brought down the thick fumes of the great bombardment and the indescribable babbling cries of a beaten army. Before we reached them that maddened horde had swept down on them, men panting and gasping in their flight, many of them bloody from wounds, many tottering in the first stages of collapse and death. I saw the horses seized by a dozen hands, and a desperate fight for their possession. But as we halted there our eyes were fixed on the battery on the road above us, for round it was now sweeping the van of the retreat. I had never seen a rout before, when strong men come to the end of their tether and only their broken shadows stumble towards the refuge they never find. No more had Stumm, poor devil. I had no ill-will left for him, though coming down that hill I was rather hoping that the two of us might have a final scrap. He was a brute and a bully, but, by God! he was a man. I heard his great roar when he saw the tumult, and the next I saw was his monstrous figure working at the gun. He swung it south and turned it on the fugitives. But he never fired it. The press was on him, and the gun was swept sideways. He stood up, a foot higher than any of them, and he seemed to be trying to check the rush with his pistol. There is power in numbers, even though every unit is broken and fleeing. For a second to that wild crowd Stumm was the enemy, and they had strength enough to crush him. The wave flowed round and then across him. I saw the butt-ends of rifles crash on his head and shoulders, and the next second the stream had passed over his body. That was God's judgement on the man who had set himself above his kind. Sandy gripped my shoulder and was shouting in my ear: 'They're coming, Dick. Look at the grey devils ... Oh, God be thanked, it's our friends!' The next minute we were tumbling down the hillside, Blenkiron hopping on one leg between us. I heard dimly Sandy crying, 'Oh, well done our side!' and Blenkiron declaiming about Harper's Ferry, but I had no voice at all and no wish to shout. I know the tears were in my eyes, and that if I had been left alone I would have sat down and cried with pure thankfulness. For sweeping down the glen came a cloud of grey cavalry on little wiry horses, a cloud which stayed not
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GREENMANTLE by
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Flying Corps.
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I had just finished breakfast and w
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He laughed. 'You do yourself an inj
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Sir Walter lay back in an arm-chair
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if a man has a special knowledge to
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years—mostly young officers of th
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and premeditated, and I didn't seem
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advantageous position to take a han
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provide food and service. I kept th
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'V. I,' I read. 'There you have me.
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'I should add that it's about as sa
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lack the larger vision. They can be
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CHAPTER THREE Peter Pienaar Our var
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summer. The hills of Portugal were
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Beyers would have hanged him if he
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the predikant used to preach about
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ar-keeper, with a lot of Shangaan w
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Peter grunted a deep approval. 'Tha
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I had expected a big barricade with
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men with heavy eyes. No wonder, poo
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factory look like a house, though y
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'Maybe he wasn't,' said the giant i
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'You need men, and the men are wait
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As I walked dizzily away the big ma
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convalescent room, where people wer
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I did as I was bid, he followed, an
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a portfolio, and flung me a few sen
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shiver. But how can we strike? They
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had only heard a gurgle of somethin
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in about a quart of water, when Stu
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abominating the English and burning
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The door opened and Stumm entered.
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'There are thousands, sire,' I said
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veld ... Not but what,' he added, '
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German Crown.' I took the card and
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helpless. The man had a gorilla's r
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'The village is five minutes off at
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my idiot had been absorbed into the
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paling of rough stakes plaited with
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village. There were one or two peop
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Hampshire. The bouts had been short
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'Gruss Gott,' I replied. I leaned a
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danced through my head in a crazy f
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your stocking-foot and use it only
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my passport inside Germany, to join
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shoulder. The others wore thick jer
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Stumm's cordon had got busy at last
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dry crackle of wild geese going ove
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Peter was in the middle of the conv
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others, for I was not a prisoner of
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elieved it. I was a poor Dutchman t
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I did not pay much attention to the
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him short. 'Come along to the comma
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The Turk swaggered up and addressed
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clearly not approving of this wet a
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here for their pleasure, and but la
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Then Peter fired over their heads.
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for any trouble with demoniacs. Up
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I had had the good fortune to colle
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have been. Sandy had said that the
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passage and the empty shop, and out
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'But I don't understand,' I stammer
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statesmen don't figure enough on. S
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understood a word of. "Maister Tamm
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'I know,' I said; 'he is called Gre
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mine. Meantime, I've got to clear,
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sailor, Blenkiron flung him three o
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Petrograd and Mr Y. in London, or,
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He tore up the papers and enlarged
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fellow engineer, and translated par
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dwelling in my intestines. I'm like
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made me sick for the burning veld.
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top of them, and the three were off
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I told him in a hectic sentence, fo
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She led me through a long corridor
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Stumm and Rasta and the whole Germa
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passports. Say, do you come from En
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out to find my visitor in a brown s
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for the open country.' This confoun
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lacker one. Do you think that woman
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'There was a time when the papers w
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I picked up the map and pocketed it
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different members of our gang. Pete
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swung along at a great pace with a
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It proved to be a wretched tumble-d
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About midday we descended on a wide
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CHAPTER SEVENTEEN Trouble by The Wa
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glittering like jewels. The arches
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wretched horses. It is vitally impo
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was difficult driving. On both side
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With an effort Stumm recovered hims
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Sandy's somewhere outside, and he's
Page 188 and 189: I guessed he had gone to have a loo
Page 190 and 191: with the impetus right on our heads
Page 192 and 193: The Deve Boyun lines seemed to me m
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Page 196 and 197: much that he broke open a wound in
Page 198 and 199: 'Drugged,' he cried, with a weary l
Page 200 and 201: Sandy's figure seemed to shrink and
Page 202 and 203: 'That's all right,' I cried. 'It is
Page 204 and 205: The outbuilding we were lodged in a
Page 206 and 207: On the road itself he would soon be
Page 208 and 209: the howitzers, and was thankful whe
Page 210 and 211: seemed to be a kind of cup between
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Page 214 and 215: 'They may not understand it,' said
Page 216 and 217: and looked at his map, and then put
Page 218 and 219: von Einem was getting ready for her
Page 220 and 221: Beside him rode a tall figure swath
Page 222 and 223: We stared blankly for a second, til
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Page 226 and 227: It was a woman's voice, high, penet
Page 228 and 229: woman had singled me out above the
Page 230 and 231: Blenkiron's field-glasses and had a
Page 232 and 233: ange for his whizz-bangs. We've got
Page 234 and 235: 'Feeling good?' I asked. 'Fine. I'm
Page 236 and 237: The choice fell on one of the Compa
Page 240 and 241: for the rear of the fugitives, but
Page 242 and 243: *** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG E
Page 244 and 245: 1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perfor
Page 246 and 247: Section 2. Information about the Mi
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