Part 1 (1/2)

Greenmantle

by John Buchan

CHAPTER ONE

A Mission is Proposed

I had just finished breakfast and was filling , the big country house in Hampshi+re where I had come to convalesce after Loos, and Sandy, as in the sa him the flimsy with the blue strip pasted down on it, and he whistled

'Hullo, dick, you've got the battalion Or hted brass-hat, coie you've wasted on brass-hats in your tiht for a bit, for the nahteen months to the hot suh 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 haood soldiers I had succeeded pretty well, and there was no prouder hlanders over the parapets on that glorious and bloody 25th day of Septely bits of scrapping before that, but the worst bit of the can 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 nae allfor the co in at the finish with Brother Boche But this ht 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 Ar up to town by the ten train,' I announced; 'I'll be back in tiot a very nice taste in red tabs You can use ht now If I wire for you, will you pack your own kit and ht-o! I'll accept a job on your staff if they give you a corps If so be as you co a barrel of oysters froular November drizzle, which cleared up about Wimbledon to watery sunshi+ne I never could stand London during the war It sees and broken out into all es 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 ithout feeling the purpose I dare say it was all right; but since August 1914 I never spent a day in toithout co hoht to the Foreign Office Sir Walter did not keepBut when his secretary took nized theframe 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 reyer 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 one he went across to both doors and turned the keys in the 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 ot the ed as does it I count on getting back to the front in a week or two'

'Will you get the battalion?' he asked He sees pretty closely

'I believe I've a good chance I'h I want to do the best I can, but I wish to heaven it was over All I think of is cohed 'You do yourself an injustice What about the forward observation post at the Lone Tree? You forgot about the whole skin then'

I feltred 'That was all rot,' I said, 'and I can't think who told you about it I hated the job, but I had to do it to preventyoung lunatics If I had sent one of theone on his knees to Providence and asked for trouble'

Sir Walter was still grinning

'I' your caution You have the rudiathered you in at our last e What exercises my mind is whether it is best employed in the trenches'

'Is the War Office dissatisfied with me?' I asked sharply

'They are profoundly satisfied They propose to give you command of your battalion Presently, if you escape a stray bullet, you will no doubt be a Brigadier It is a wonderful war for youth and brains ButI take it you are in this business to serve your country, Hannay?'

'I reckon I am,' I said 'I am certainly not in it for , where the doctors had dug out the shrapnel fragain?' he asked