Part 20 (1/2)

'Did they provide you with ready-made spies here?' I asked in astonishave ements In Germany I buried myself deep in the local ata in Gers As you know, I failed where you succeeded But so soon as I crossed the Danube I set about opening up my lines of communication, and I hadn't been two days in thisSo to you, for it's a pretty little business I've got the cutest cypherNo, it ain't my invention It's your Government's Any one, babe, ies-you saw some of them today-but it takes so at my end to work out the results Souess it would please you'

'How do you use it?' I asked

'Well, I get early noos of what is going on in this cabbage-patch Likewise I get authentic noos of the rest of Europe, and I can send a rad and Mr Y in London, or, if I wish, to Mr Z in Noo York What's the matter with that for a post-office? I'm the best informed man in Constantinople, for old General Liman only hears one side, and mostly lies at that, and Enver prefers not to listen at all Also, I could give the at their very door, for our friend Sandy is a big boss in the best-run crowd of mountebanks that ever fiddled secrets out of men's hearts Without their help I wouldn't have cut , Blenkiron,' I said 'I've been playing a part for the past month, and it wears , for if it is, I doubt I htful 'I can't call our business an absolute rest-cure any tiot to keep your eyes skinned, and there's always the risk of the little packet of dynao, I rate this stunt as easy We've only got to be natural We wear our natural clothes, and talk English, and sport a Teddy Roosevelt smile, and there isn't any call for theatrical talent Where I've found the job tight hen I had got to be natural, and my naturalness was the same brand as that of everybody round about, and all the ti don to business and taking cocktails with Mr Carl Rosenhei to blow Mr Rosenheih And it isn't easy to keep up a part which is clean outside your ordinary life I've never tried that My line has always been to keep uess you found it wearing'

'Wearing's aIt seeood as could be But it's a cast-iron line It commits us pretty deep and it won't be a simple job to drop it'

'Why, that's just the point I was co to put you wise about that very thing When I started out I figured on soued that unless I had a very clear part with a big bluff in it I wouldn't get the confidences which I needed We've got to be at the heart of the show, taking a real hand and not just looking on So I settled I would be a big engineer-there was a tier in the United States than John S Blenkiron I talked large about whatthe British down the river Well, that talk caught on They knew of my reputation as an hydraulic expert, and they were tickled to death to rope me in I told them I wanted a helper, and I told theood a Gerh Russia and Ruot to Constantinople would drop his neutrality and double his benevolence They got reports on you by wire frooing to be welcomed and taken to their bosoot jobs we can hold down, and now you're in these pretty clothes you're the dead ringer of the brightest kind of Ao back on our tracks If anted to leave for Constanza next week they'd be very polite, but they'd never let us We've got to go on with this adventure and nose our way down into Mesopota that our luck will holdGod knoill get out of it; but it's no good going out to meet trouble As I observed before, I believe in an all-wise and beneficent Providence, but you've got to give hiered ainst our own side I wondered if it wouldn't be better to make a bolt for it, and said SO

He shook his head 'I reckon not In the first place we haven't finished our inquiries We've got Greenh, thanks to you, but we still know hty little about that holy man In the second place it won't be as bad as you think This show lacks cohesion, Sir It is not going to last for ever 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 gaot 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 ht anywhere The troops released from Gallipoli wanted a lot of refit the Transcaucasian frontier, where the Russians were threatening The Army of Syria was pretty nearly a rabble under the lunatic Djeiest chance of a serious invasion of Egypt being undertaken Only in Mesopota 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 per cent of the pretty soon to lose ed on politics 'I reckon I've got theTurks and their precious Coh, and for sure he's got sand He'll stick out a fight like a Verer vision, Sir He doesn't understand the intricacies of the job no -child, so the Geroes and he bucks like aants to batter ood cow-punchers in the old days, and they un-men of a Labour Union They're about the class of Jesse Jae-reared and can patter languages But they haven't the organizing power to e the Irish vote in a ward election Their one notion is to get busy with their firear tired of the Black Hand stunt Their hold on the country is just the hold that a -sticks The cooler heads in the Co shy of the low till his ti of that kind has got to hang close together or they rip 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 Gerhed 'It is no sort of a happy fa Turks know that without the Ger up like Halect an ally Consider ould 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 otherabout it You'd have Rus would look pretty black for that control of the Near East on which Gerot to be prevented at all costs, but how is it going to be done?'

Blenkiron's face had becoot a truot a chance And that chance is a woer brain than Enver and Liman She's the real boss of the show When I caot to do the same I am curious as to how she'll strike you, for I'm free to admit that she impressedway froun,' said Blenkiron

That talk did a lot to cheer a this tied I want a good stake for an so, 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 ot was a picture of an oldout of a bottle in a cloud of smoke, which I rehts But if he was diht of her as a fat old German crone, sometimes as a harsh-featured wolasses But I had to fit the East into the picture, so I uid houri in a veil I was alanting to pump Blenkiron on the subject, but he shut up like a rat-trap 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 inht ere bidden to dinner at Moellendorff's, so we put on our best clothes and set out in an ancient cab Blenkiron had fetched a dress suit of mine, from which my own tailor's label had been cut and a New York one substituted

General Lione up the line to Nish toin those parts, so Moellendorff was the biggest German in the city He was a thin, foxy-faced fellow, cleverish but monstrously vain, and he was not very popular either with the Germans or the Turks He was polite to both of us, but I aht when I entered the room, for the first nized me even in the clothes I had worn in Stuht retched As it was, I ran no risk in dress-clothes, with my hair brushed back and a fine Aineer, and translated part of a very technical conversation between him and Blenkiron Gaudian was in uniform, and I liked the look of his honest face better than ever

But the great event was the sight of Enver He was a slim fellow of Rasta's build, very foppish and precise in his dress, with a sht black eyebrows He spoke perfect German, and had the best kind ofHe had a pleasant trick, too, of appealing all round the table for confir everybody into the talk Not that he spoke a great deal, but all he said was good sense, and he had a s it Once or twice he ran counter to Moellendorff, and I could see there was no love lost between these two I didn't think I wanted him as a friend-he was too cold-blooded and artificial; and I was pretty certain that I didn't want those steady black eyes as an ene his quality The little felloas all cold courage, like the fine polished blue steel of a sword

I fancy I was rather a success at that dinner For one thing I could speak Gerood te h-flown stuff about what they had done and were going to do, and Enver was great on Gallipoli I remember he said that he could have destroyed the whole British Army if it hadn't been for soers They were so bitter about Britain and all her works that I gathered they were getting pretty panicky, and that made me as jolly as a sandboy I'm afraid I was not free fros about ht and sweat to think of

Gaudian got on to the use of water power in war, and that gave et rid of aon earth that will stand against water Now, speaking with all respect, gentlemen, and as an absolute novice in the iven weapon isn't more used in the present war I haven't been to any of the fronts, but I've studied them some from maps and the newspapers Take your Gerround If I were a British general I reckon I would very soon make it no sort of position'

Moellendorff asked, 'How?'

'Why, I'd wash it away Wash away the fourteen feet of soil down to the stone There's a heap of coalpits behind the British front where they could generate power, and I judge there's auarantee to wash you away in twenty-four hours-yes, in spite of all your big guns It beats ot on to this notion They used to have soineers'

Enver was on the point like a knife, far quicker than Gaudian He cross-examined me in a way that showed he kne to approach a technical subject, though hein Mesopotaht in a chit which fetched hih,' he said 'My kind host, I ies and farewells'