Part 1 (2/2)

'Tough as a sjambok I thrive on the racket and eat and sleep like a schoolboy'

He got up and stood with his back to the fire, his eyes staring abstractedly out of theat the wintry park

'It is a great game, and you are the man for it, no doubt But there are others who can play it, for soldiering today asks for the average rather than the exception in hu , not because you are short of a job, but because you want to help England How if you could help her better than by coade-or, if it co which you alone can do? Not so coht at Loos was a Sunday-school picnic You are not afraid of danger? Well, in this job you would not be fighting with an ar difficulties? Well, I can give you a task which will try all your powers Have you anything to say?'

My heart was beginning to thump uncoh

'I am a soldier,' I said, 'and under orders'

'True; but what I am about to propose does not come by any conceivable stretch within the scope of a soldier's duties I shall perfectly understand if you decline You will be acting as I should act myself-as any sane man would I would not press you for worlds If you wish it, I will not even ood luck with your battalion I do not wish to perplex a good soldier with impossible decisions'

This piquedto run away before the guns fire Let me hear what you propose'

Sir Walter crossed to a cabinet, unlocked it with a key from his chain, and took a piece of paper from a drawer It looked like an ordinary half-sheet of note-paper

'I take it,' he said, 'that your travels have not extended to the East'

'No,' I said, 'barring a shooting trip in East Africa'

'Have you by any chance been following the present caularly since I went to hospital I've got some pals in the Mesopota to happen at Gallipoli and Salonika I gather that Egypt is pretty safe'

'If you will give me your attention for ten '

Sir Walter lay back in an ar It was the best story, the clearest and the fullest, I had ever got of any bit of the war He told me just how and why and when Turkey had left the rails I heard about her grievances over our seizure of her ironclads, of the ht, of Enver and his precious Coot a cinch on the old Turk When he had spoken for a bit, he began to question ent fellow, and you will ask how a Polish adventurer, ipsies should have got control of a proud race The ordinary anization backed up with Gerain how, since Turkey is priious power, Islam has played so slected, and though the Kaiser proclaims a Holy War and calls himself Hadji Mohammed Guilliamo, and says the Hohenzollerns are descended from the Prophet, that seeain will answer that Islauns are the new Gods Yet-I don't know I do not quite believe in Isla a back number'

'Look at it in another way,' he went on 'If it were Enver and Ger Turkey into a European war for purposes that no Turk cared a rush about, we ular army obedient, and Constantinople But in the provinces, where Isla, there would be trouble Many of us counted on that But we have been disappointed The Syrian army is as fanatical as the hordes of the Mahdi The Senussi have taken a hand in the ga trouble There is a dry wind blowing through the East, and the parched grasses wait the spark And that wind is blowing towards the Indian border Whence comes that wind, think you?'

Sir Walter had lowered his voice and was speaking very slow and distinct I could hear the rain dripping from the eaves of the , and far off the hoot of taxis in Whitehall

'Have you an explanation, Hannay?' he asked again

'It looks as if Islaht,' I said 'I fancy religion is the only thing to knit up such a scattered eht We have laughed at the Holy War, the jehad that old Von der Goltz prophesied But I believe that stupid old ht There is a jehad preparing The question is, How?'