Part 24 (1/2)

'Where are you going?' I asked

'I don't know But I gather it's a long journey, judging by the preparations And itby the clothes provided'

'Well, wherever it is, we're going with you You haven't heard the end of our yarn Blenkiron and I have been ineers who are going to play Old Harry with the British on the Tigris I'm a pal of Enver's now, and he has offered ht our passports for the journey to Mesopotao your lady tore the with her, and she vouchsafed the inforreat hills'

Sandy whistled long and low 'I wonder what the deuce she wants with you? This thing is getting dashed complicated, dickWhere, h politics'

TheBlenkiron, as Sandy spoke, entered the rooe that for once he had no dyspepsia, and by his eyes that he was excited

'Say, boys,' he said, 'I've got so pretty considerable in the way of noos There's been big fighting on the Eastern border, and the Buzzards have taken a bad knock'

His hands were full of papers, from which he selected a map and spread it on the table

'They keepthe story together these last days and I think I've got it straight A fortnight ago old man Nicholas descended from his mountains and scuppered his enemies there-at Kuprikeui, where the inning of the stunt, for he pressed on on a broad front, and the gentleman called Kiamil, who co him The Buzzards were shepherded in fro down outside the forts of Erzerum I can tell you they're pretty hest quartersEnver is sweating blood to get fresh divisions to Erzeru road and it looks as if they would be too late for the fairYou and I, Major, start for Mesopotamy tomorrow, and that's about the meanest bit of bad luck that ever happened to John S We're n'

I picked up the map and pocketed it Maps werefor one

'We're not going to Mesopotamia,' I said 'Our orders have been cancelled'

'But I've just seen Enver, and he said he had sent round our passports'

'They're in the fire,' I said 'The right ones will co'

Sandy broke in, his eyes bright with excite to Erzeru card? They're sending Green will rally the Turkish defence Things are beginning tothe heels for us We're going to be in it up to the neck, and Heaven help the best manI must be off now, for I've a lot to do Au revoir We meet some time in the hills'

Blenkiron still looked puzzled, till I told his As he listened, all the satisfaction went out of his face, and that funny, childish air of bewilderment crept in

'It's not for ht line of our dooty, but I reckon there's going to be big trouble ahead of this caravan It's Kisot to bow But I won't pretend that I'm not considerable scared at the prospect'

'Oh, so aainst it this tilad we're to be let into the real starthe provinces'

'I guess that's correct But I could wish that the good God would see fit to take that lovely lady to Himself She's too much for a quiet round-floor I feel like taking the elevator to the roof-garden'

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

The Battered Caravanserai

Two days later, in the evening, we cae in our journey

The passports had arrived next , as Frau von Einem had promised, and with them a plan of our journey More, one of the Colish, was detailed to accompany us-a wise precaution, for no one of us had a word of Turkish These were the su more of Sandy or Greenmantle or the lady We were meant to travel in our own party

We had the railway to Angora, a very coen, tacked to the end of a troop-train There wasn't much to be seen of the country, for after we left the Bosporus we ran into scuds of snow, and except that we see plateau I had no notion of the landscape It was a ested beyond anything I have ever seen The place was crawling with the Gallipoli troops, and every siding was packed with supply trucks When we stopped-which we did on an average about once an hour-you could see vast cai the railway track They looked a fine, hardy lot of ruffians, but ed, and I didn't think much of their boots I wondered how they would do the five hundred miles of road to Erzerum