Greenmantle - John Buchan (free ebook reader for iphone .TXT) 📗

think. This show lacks cohesion, Sir. It is not going to last forever. 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 dispositions 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 Gallipoli wanted a lot of refitment, and would be slow in reaching the Transcaucasian frontier, where the Russians were threatening. The Army of Syria was pretty nearly a rabble under the lunatic Djemal. There wasn’t the foggiest chance of a serious invasion of Egypt being undertaken. Only in Mesopotamia did things look fairly cheerful, owing to the blunders of British strategy. “And you may take it from me,” he said, “that if the old Turk mobilized a total of a million men, he has lost 40 percent 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 the 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 vision, Sir. He doesn’t understand the intricacies of the job no more than a sucking-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 batter mankind with a club. Both these boys would have made good cowpunchers in the old days, and they might have got a living out West as the gunmen of a Labour Union. They’re about the class of Jesse James or Billy the Kid, excepting that they’re college-reared and can patter languages. But they haven’t the organizing power to manage the Irish vote in a ward election. Their one notion is to get busy with their firearms, and people are getting tired of the Black Hand stunt. Their hold on the country is just the hold that a man with a Browning has over a crowd with walking-sticks. The cooler heads in the Committee are growing shy of them, and an old fox like David is 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 may hang separately. They’ve got no grip on the ordinary Turk, barring the fact that they are active and he is sleepy, and that they’ve got their guns loaded.”

“What about the Germans here?” I asked.

Blenkiron laughed. “It is no sort of a happy family. But the Young Turks know that without the German boost they’ll be strung up like Haman, and the Germans can’t afford to neglect an ally. Consider what would happen if Turkey got sick of the game and made a separate peace. The road would be open for Russia to the Aegean. Ferdy of Bulgaria would take his depreciated goods to the other market, and not waste a day thinking about it. You’d have Romania coming in on the Allies’ side. Things would look pretty black for that control of the Near East on which Germany has banked her winnings. Kaiser says that’s got to be prevented at all costs, but how is it going to be done?”

Blenkiron’s face had become very solemn again. “It won’t be done unless Germany’s got a trump card to play. Her game’s mighty near bust, but it’s still got a chance. And that chance is a woman and an old man. I reckon our landlady has a bigger brain than Enver and Liman. She’s the real boss of the show. When I came here, I reported to her, and presently you’ve got to do the same. I am curious as to how she’ll strike you, for I’m free to admit that she impressed me considerable.”

“It looks as if our job were a long way from the end,” I said.

“It’s scarcely begun,” said Blenkiron.

That talk did a lot to cheer my spirits, for I realized that it was the biggest of big game we were hunting this time. I’m an economical soul, and if I’m going to be hanged I want a good stake for my neck.

Then began some varied experiences. I used to wake up in the morning, wondering where I should be at night, and yet quite pleased at the uncertainty. Greenmantle became a sort of myth with me. Somehow I couldn’t fix any idea in my head of what he was like. The nearest I got was a picture of an old man in a turban coming out of a bottle in a cloud of smoke, which I remembered from a child’s edition of the Arabian Nights. But if he was dim, the lady was dimmer. Sometimes I thought of her as a fat old German crone, sometimes as a harsh-featured woman like a schoolmistress with thin lips and eyeglasses. But I had to fit the East into the picture, so I made her young and gave her a touch of the languid houri in a veil. I was always wanting to pump Blenkiron on the subject, but he shut up like a rattrap. He was looking for bad trouble in that direction, and was disinclined to speak about it beforehand.

We led a peaceful existence. Our servants were two of Sandy’s lot, for Blenkiron had very rightly cleared out the Turkish caretakers, and they worked like beavers under Peter’s eye, till I reflected I had never been so well looked after in my life. I walked about the city with Blenkiron, keeping my eyes open, and speaking very civil. The third night we