Greenmantle - John Buchan

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I had just finished breakfast and was filling my pipe when I got Bullivant's telegram. It was at Furling, the big country house in Hampshire where I had come to convalesce after Loos, and Sandy, who was in the same case, was hunting for the marmalade. I flung him the flimsy with the blue strip pasted down on it, and he whistled. 'Hullo, Dick, you've got the battalion. Or maybe it's a staff billet. You'll be a blighted brass-hat, coming it heavy over the hard-working regimental officer. And to think of the language you've wasted on brass-hats in your time!' I sat and thought for a bit, for the name 'Bullivant' carried me back eighteen months to the hot summer before the war. I had not seen the man since, though I had read about him in the papers. For more than a year I had been a busy battalion officer, with no other thought than to hammer a lot of raw stuff into good soldiers. I had succeeded pretty well, and there was no prouder man on earth than Richard Hannay when he took his Lennox Highlanders over the parapets on that glorious and bloody 25th day of September. Loos was no picnic, and we had had some ugly bits of scrapping before that, but the worst bit of the campaign I had seen was a tea-party to the show I had been in with Bullivant before the war started. [Major Hannay's narrative of this affair has been published under the title of The Thirty-nine Steps.] The sight of his name on a telegram form seemed to change all my outlook on life. I had been hoping for the command of the battalion, and looking forward to being in at the finish with Brother Boche. But this message jerked my thoughts on to a new road. There might be other things in the war than straightforward fighting. Why on earth should the Foreign Office want to see an obscure Major of the New Army, and want to see him in double-quick time? 'I'm going up to town by the ten train,' I announced; 'I'll be back in time for dinner.' 'Try my tailor,' said Sandy. 'He's got a very nice taste in red tabs. You can use my name.' An idea struck me. 'You're pretty well all right now. If I wire for you, will you pack your own kit and mine and join me?' 'Right-o! I'll accept a job on your staff if they give you a corps. If so be as you come down tonight, be a good chap and bring a barrel of oysters from
Sweeting's.' I travelled up to London in a regular November drizzle, which cleared up about Wimbledon to watery sunshine. I never could stand London during the war. It seemed to have lost its bearings and broken out into all manner of badges and uniforms which did not fit in with my notion of it. One felt the war more in its streets than in the field, or rather one felt the confusion of war without feeling the purpose. I dare say it was all right; but since August 1914 I never spent a day in town without coming home depressed to my boots. I took a taxi and drove straight to the Foreign Office. Sir Walter did not keep me waiting long. But when his secretary took me to his room I would not have recognized the man I had known eighteen months before. His big frame seemed to have dropped flesh and there was a stoop in the square shoulders. His face had lost its rosiness and was red in patches, like that of a man who gets too little fresh air. His hair was much greyer and very thin about the temples, and there were lines of overwork below the eyes. But the eyes were the same as before, keen and kindly and shrewd, and there was no change in the firm set of the jaw. 'We must on no account be disturbed for the next hour,' he told his secretary. When the young man had gone he went across to both doors and turned the keys in them. 'Well, Major Hannay,' he said, flinging himself into a chair beside the fire. 'How do you like soldiering?' 'Right enough,' I said, 'though this isn't just the kind of war I would have picked myself. It's a comfortless, bloody business. But we've got the measure of the old Boche now, and it's dogged as does it. I count on getting back to the front in a week or two.' 'Will you get the battalion?' he asked. He seemed to have followed my doings pretty closely. 'I believe I've a good chance. I'm not in this show for honour and glory, though. I want to do the best I can, but I wish to heaven it was over. All I think of is coming out of it with a whole skin.'
Page 2 and 3: GREENMANTLE by
Page 4 and 5: Flying Corps.
Page 8 and 9: He laughed. 'You do yourself an inj
Page 10 and 11: Sir Walter lay back in an arm-chair
Page 12 and 13: if a man has a special knowledge to
Page 14 and 15: years—mostly young officers of th
Page 16 and 17: and premeditated, and I didn't seem
Page 18 and 19: advantageous position to take a han
Page 20 and 21: provide food and service. I kept th
Page 22 and 23: 'V. I,' I read. 'There you have me.
Page 24 and 25: 'I should add that it's about as sa
Page 26 and 27: lack the larger vision. They can be
Page 28 and 29: CHAPTER THREE Peter Pienaar Our var
Page 30 and 31: summer. The hills of Portugal were
Page 32 and 33: Beyers would have hanged him if he
Page 34 and 35: the predikant used to preach about
Page 36 and 37: ar-keeper, with a lot of Shangaan w
Page 38 and 39: Peter grunted a deep approval. 'Tha
Page 40 and 41: I had expected a big barricade with
Page 42 and 43: men with heavy eyes. No wonder, poo
Page 44 and 45: factory look like a house, though y
Page 46 and 47: 'Maybe he wasn't,' said the giant i
Page 48 and 49: 'You need men, and the men are wait
Page 50 and 51: As I walked dizzily away the big ma
Page 52 and 53: convalescent room, where people wer
Page 54 and 55: I did as I was bid, he followed, an
Page 56 and 57:
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
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I guessed he had gone to have a loo
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with the impetus right on our heads
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The Deve Boyun lines seemed to me m
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I had learned what I needed. We wer
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much that he broke open a wound in
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'Drugged,' he cried, with a weary l
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Sandy's figure seemed to shrink and
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'That's all right,' I cried. 'It is
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The outbuilding we were lodged in a
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On the road itself he would soon be
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the howitzers, and was thankful whe
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seemed to be a kind of cup between
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dislodge one ounce of snow. Still t
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'They may not understand it,' said
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and looked at his map, and then put
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von Einem was getting ready for her
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Beside him rode a tall figure swath
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We stared blankly for a second, til
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sides to prevent them getting us in
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It was a woman's voice, high, penet
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woman had singled me out above the
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Blenkiron's field-glasses and had a
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ange for his whizz-bangs. We've got
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'Feeling good?' I asked. 'Fine. I'm
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The choice fell on one of the Compa
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deaf to the sound. Stumm had seen u
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for the rear of the fugitives, but
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*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG E
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1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perfor
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Section 2. Information about the Mi
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Greenmantle - John Buchan

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