The Return of the Straggler
Before I turned in that evening I had done some good hours’ work in the
engine-room. The boat was oil-fired, and in very fair order, so my
duties did not look as if they would be heavy. There was nobody who
could be properly called an engineer; only, besides the furnace-men, a
couple of lads from Hamburg who had been a year ago apprentices in a
ship-building yard. They were civil fellows, both of them consumptive,
who did what I told them and said little. By bedtime, if you had seen
me in my blue jumper, a pair of carpet slippers, and a flat cap—all the
property of the deceased Walter—you would have sworn I had been bred to
the firing of river-boats, whereas I had acquired most of my knowledge
on one run down the Zambesi, when the proper engineer got drunk and
fell overboard among the crocodiles.
The captain—they called him Schenk—was out of his bearings in the job.
He was a Frisian and a first-class deep-water seaman, but, since he
knew the Rhine delta, and because the German mercantile marine was laid
on the ice till the end of war, they had turned him on to this show. He
was bored by the business, and didn’t understand it very well. The
river charts puzzled him, and though it was pretty plain going for
hundreds of miles, yet he was in a perpetual fidget about the pilotage.
You could see that he would have been far more in his element smelling
his way through the shoals of the Ems mouth, or beating against a
northeaster in the shallow Baltic. He had six barges in tow, but the
heavy flood of the Danube made it an easy job except when it came to
going slow. There were two men on each barge, who came aboard every
morning to draw rations. That was a funny business, for we never lay to
if we could help it. There was a dinghy belonging to each barge, and
the men used to row to the next and get a lift in that barge’s dinghy,
and so forth. Six men would appear in the dinghy of the barge nearest
us and carry off supplies for the rest. The men were mostly Frisians,
slow-spoken, sandy-haired lads, very like the breed you strike on the
Essex coast.
It was the fact that Schenk was really a deep-water sailor, and so a
novice to the job, that made me get on with him. He was a good fellow
and quite willing to take a hint, so before I had been twenty-four
hours on board he was telling me all his difficulties, and I was doing
my best to cheer him. And difficulties came thick, because the next
night was New Year’s Eve.
I knew that that night was a season of gaiety in Scotland, but Scotland
wasn’t in it with the Fatherland. Even Schenk, though he was in charge
of valuable stores and was voyaging against time, was quite clear that
the men must have permission for some kind of beano. Just before
darkness we came abreast a fair-sized town, whose name I never
discovered, and decided to lie to for the night. The arrangement was
that one man should be left on guard in each barge, and the other get
four hours’ leave ashore. Then he would return and relieve his friend,
who should proceed to do the same thing. I foresaw that there would be
some fun when the first batch returned, but I did not dare to protest.
I was desperately anxious to get past the Austrian frontier, for I had
a half-notion we might be searched there, but Schenk took his
_Sylvesterabend_ business so seriously that I would have risked a row
if I had tried to argue.
The upshot was what I expected. We got the first batch aboard about
midnight, blind to the world, and the others straggled in at all hours
next morning. I stuck to the boat for obvious reasons, but next day it
became too serious, and I had to go ashore with the captain to try and
round up the stragglers. We got them all in but two, and I am inclined
to think these two had never meant to come back. If I had a soft job
like a river-boat I shouldn’t be inclined to run away in the middle of
Germany with the certainty that my best fate would be to be scooped up
for the trenches, but your Frisian has no more imagination than a
haddock. The absentees were both watchmen from the barges, and I fancy
the monotony of the life had got on their nerves.
The captain was in a raging temper, for he was short-handed to begin
with. He would have started a press-gang, but there was no superfluity
of men in that township: nothing but boys and grandfathers. As I was
helping to run the trip I was pretty annoyed also, and I sluiced down
the drunkards with icy Danube water, using all the worst language I
knew in Dutch and German. It was a raw morning, and as we raged through
the river-side streets I remember I heard the dry crackle of wild geese
going overhead, and wished I could get a shot at them. I told one
fellow—he was the most troublesome—that he was a disgrace to a great
Empire, and was only fit to fight with the filthy English.
“God in Heaven!” said the captain, “we can delay no longer. We must
make shift the best we can. I can spare one man from the deck hands,
and you must give up one from the engine-room.”
That was arranged, and we were tearing back rather short in the wind
when I espied a figure sitting on a bench beside the booking-office on
the pier. It was a slim figure, in an old suit of khaki: some cast-off
duds which had long lost the semblance of a uniform. It had a gentle
face, and was smoking peacefully, looking out upon the river and the
boats and us noisy fellows with meek philosophical eyes. If I had seen
General French sitting there and looking like nothing on earth I
couldn’t have been more surprised.
The man stared at me without recognition. He was waiting for his cue.
I spoke rapidly in Sesutu, for I was afraid the captain might know
Dutch.
“Where have you come from?” I asked.
“They shut me up in _tronk_,” said Peter, “and I ran away. I am tired,
Cornelis, and want to continue the journey by boat.”
“Remember you have worked for me in Africa,” I said. “You are just home
from Damaraland. You are a German who has lived thirty years away from
home. You can tend a furnace and have worked in mines.”
Then I spoke to the captain.
“Here is a fellow who used to be in my employ, Captain Schenk. It’s
almighty luck we’ve struck him. He’s old, and not very strong in the
head, but I’ll go bail he’s a good worker. He says he’ll come with us
and I can use him in the engine-room.”
“Stand up,” said the Captain.
Peter stood up, light and slim and wiry as a leopard. A sailor does not
judge men by girth and weight.
“He’ll do,” said Schenk, and the next minute he was readjusting his
crews and giving the strayed revellers the rough side of his tongue. As
it chanced, I couldn’t keep Peter with me, but had to send him to one
of the barges, and I had time for no more than five words with him,
when I told him to hold his tongue and live up to his reputation as a
half-wit. That accursed _Sylvesterabend_ had played havoc with the
whole outfit, and the captain and I were weary men before we got things
straight.
In one way it turned out well. That afternoon we passed the frontier
and I never knew it till I saw a man in a strange uniform come aboard,
who copied some figures on a schedule, and brought us a mail. With my
dirty face and general air of absorption in duty, I must have been an
unsuspicious figure. He took down the names of the men in the barges,
and Peter’s name was given as it appeared on the ship’s roll—Anton
Blum.
“You must feel it strange, Herr Brandt,” said the captain, “to be
scrutinized by a policeman, you who give orders, I doubt not, to many
policemen.”
I shrugged my shoulders. “It is my profession. It is my business to go
unrecognized often by my own servants.” I could see that I was becoming
rather a figure in the captain’s eyes. He liked the way I kept the men
up to their work, for I hadn’t been a nigger-driver for nothing.
Late on that Sunday night we passed through a great city which the
captain told me was Vienna. It seemed to last for miles and miles, and
to be as brightly lit as a circus. After that, we were in big plains
and the air grew perishing cold. Peter had come aboard once for his
rations, but usually he left it to his partner, for he was lying very
low. But one morning—I think it was the 5th of January, when we had
passed Buda and were moving through great sodden flats just sprinkled
with snow—the captain took it into his head to get me to overhaul the
barge loads. Armed with a mighty type-written list, I made a tour of
the barges, beginning with the hindmost. There was a fine old stock of
deadly weapons—mostly machine-guns and some field-pieces, and enough
shells to blow up the Gallipoli peninsula. All kinds of shell were
there, from the big 14-inch crumps to rifle grenades and
trench-mortars. It made me fairly sick to see all these good things
preparing for our own fellows, and I wondered whether I would not be
doing my best service if I engineered a big explosion. Happily I had
the common sense to remember my job and my duty and to stick to it.
Peter was in the middle of the convoy, and I found him pretty unhappy,
principally through not being allowed to smoke. His companion was an
ox-eyed lad, whom I ordered to the look-out while Peter and I went over
the lists.
“Cornelis, my old friend,” he said, “there are some pretty toys here.
With a spanner and a couple of clear hours I could make these maxims
about as deadly as bicycles. What do you say to a try?”
“I’ve considered that,” I said, “but it won’t do. We’re on a bigger
business than wrecking munition convoys. I want to know how you got
here.”
He smiled with that extraordinary Sunday-school docility of his.
“It was very simple, Cornelis. I was foolish in the cafe—but they have
told you of that. You see I was angry and did not reflect. They had
separated us, and I could see would treat me as dirt. Therefore, my bad
temper came out, for, as I have told you, I do not like Germans.”
Peter gazed lovingly at the little bleak farms which dotted the
Hungarian plain.
“All night I lay in _tronk_ with no food. In the morning they fed me,
and took me hundreds of miles in a train to a place which I think is
called Neuburg. It was a great prison, full of English officers ... I
asked myself many times on the journey what was the reason of this
treatment, for I could see no sense in it. If they wanted to punish me
for insulting them they had the chance to send me off to the trenches.
No one could have objected. If they thought me useless they could have
turned me back to Holland. I could not have stopped them. But they
treated me as if I were a dangerous man, whereas all their conduct
hitherto had shown that they thought me a fool. I could not understand
it.
“But I had not been one night in that Neuburg place before I thought of
the reason. They wanted to keep me under observation as a check upon
you, Cornelis. I figured it out this way. They had given you some very
important work which required them to let you into some big secret. So
far, good. They evidently thought much of you, even yon Stumm man,
though he was as rude as a buffalo. But they did not know you fully,
and they wanted to check on you. That check they found in Peter
Pienaar. Peter was a fool, and if there was anything to blab, sooner or
later Peter would blab it. Then they would stretch out a long arm and
nip you short, wherever you were. Therefore they must keep old Peter
under their eye.”
“That sounds likely enough,” I said.
“It was God’s truth,” said Peter. “And when it was all clear to me I
settled that I must escape. Partly because I am a free man and do not
like to be in prison, but mostly because I was not sure of myself. Some
day my temper would go again, and I might say foolish things for which
Cornelis would suffer. So it was very certain that I must escape.
“Now, Cornelis, I noticed pretty soon that there were two kinds among
the prisoners. There were the real prisoners, mostly English and
French, and there were humbugs. The humbugs were treated, apparently,
like the others, but not really, as I soon perceived. There was one man
who passed as an English officer, another as a French Canadian, and the
others called themselves Russians. None of the honest men suspected
them, but they were there as spies to hatch plots for escape and get
the poor devils caught in the act, and to worm out confidences which
might be of value. That is the German notion of good business. I am not
a British soldier to think all men are gentlemen. I know that amongst
men there are desperate _skellums_, so I soon picked up this game. It
made me very angry, but it was a good thing for my plan. I made my
resolution to escape the day I arrived at Neuburg, and on Christmas Day
I had a plan made.”
“Peter, you’re an old marvel. Do you mean to say you were quite certain
of getting away whenever you wanted?”
“Quite certain, Cornelis. You see, I have been wicked in my time and
know something about the inside of prisons. You may build them like
great castles, or they may be like a backveld _tronk_, only mud and
corrugated iron, but there is always a key and a man who keeps it, and
that man can be bested. I knew I could get away, but I did not think it
would be so easy. That was due to the bogus prisoners, my friends, the
spies.
“I made great pals with them. On Christmas night we were very jolly
together. I think I spotted every one of them the first day. I bragged
about my past and all I had done, and I told them I was going to
escape. They backed me up and promised to help. Next morning I had a
plan. In the afternoon, just after dinner, I had to go to the
commandant’s room. They treated me a little differently from the
others, for I was not a prisoner of war, and I went there to be asked
questions and to be cursed as a stupid Dutchman. There was no strict
guard kept there, for the place was on the second floor, and distant by
many yards from any staircase. In the corridor outside the commandant’s
room there was a window which had no bars, and four feet from the
window the limb of a great tree. A man might reach that limb, and if he
were active as a monkey might descend to the ground. Beyond that I knew
nothing, but I am a good climber, Cornelis.
“I told the others of my plan. They said it was good, but no one
offered to come with me. They were very noble; they declared that the
scheme was mine and I should have the fruit of it, for if more than one
tried, detection was certain. I agreed and thanked them—thanked them
with tears in my eyes. Then one of them very secretly produced a map.
We planned out my road, for I was going straight to Holland. It was a
long road, and I had no money, for they had taken all my sovereigns
when I was arrested, but they promised to get a subscription up among
themselves to start me. Again I wept tears of gratitude. This was on
Sunday, the day after Christmas, and I settled to make the attempt on
the Wednesday afternoon.
“Now, Cornelis, when the lieutenant took us to see the British
prisoners, you remember, he told us many things about the ways of
prisons. He told us how they loved to catch a man in the act of escape,
so that they could use him harshly with a clear conscience. I thought
of that, and calculated that now my friends would have told everything
to the commandant, and that they would be waiting to bottle me on the
Wednesday. Till then I reckoned I would be slackly guarded, for they
would look on me as safe in the net ...
“So I went out of the window next day. It was the Monday afternoon ...”
“That was a bold stroke,” I said admiringly.
“The plan was bold, but it was not skilful,” said Peter modestly. “I
had no money beyond seven marks, and I had but one stick of chocolate.
I had no overcoat, and it was snowing hard. Further, I could not get
down the tree, which had a trunk as smooth and branchless as a blue
gum. For a little I thought I should be compelled to give in, and I was
not happy.
“But I had leisure, for I did not think I would be missed before
nightfall, and given time a man can do most things. By and by I found a
branch which led beyond the outer wall of the yard and hung above the
river. This I followed, and then dropped from it into the stream. It
was a drop of some yards, and the water was very swift, so that I
nearly drowned. I would rather swim the Limpopo, Cornelis, among all
the crocodiles than that icy river. Yet I managed to reach the shore
and get my breath lying in the bushes ...
“After that it was plain going, though I was very cold. I knew that I
would be sought on the northern roads, as I had told my friends, for no
one could dream of an ignorant Dutchman going south away from his
kinsfolk. But I had learned enough from the map to know that our road
lay south-east, and I had marked this big river.”
“Did you hope to pick me up?” I asked.
“No, Cornelis. I thought you would be travelling in first-class
carriages while I should be plodding on foot. But I was set on getting
to the place you spoke of (how do you call it? Constant Nople?), where
our big business lay. I thought I might be in time for that.”
“You’re an old Trojan, Peter,” I said; “but go on. How did you get to
that landing-stage where I found you?”
“It was a hard journey,” he said meditatively. “It was not easy to get
beyond the barbed-wire entanglements which surrounded Neuburg—yes, even
across the river. But in time I reached the woods and was safe, for I
did not think any German could equal me in wild country. The best of
them, even their foresters, are but babes in veldcraft compared with
such as me ... My troubles came only from hunger and cold. Then I met a
Peruvian smouse[1], and sold him my clothes and bought from him these.
I did not want to part with my own, which were better, but he gave me
ten marks on the deal. After that I went into a village and ate
heavily.”
[1] Peter meant a Polish-Jew pedlar.
“Were you pursued?” I asked.
“I do not think so. They had gone north, as I expected, and were
looking for me at the railway stations which my friends had marked for
me. I walked happily and put a bold face on it. If I saw a man or woman
look at me suspiciously I went up to them at once and talked. I told a
sad tale, and all believed it. I was a poor Dutchman travelling home on
foot to see a dying mother, and I had been told that by the Danube I
should find the main railway to take me to Holland. There were kind
people who gave me food, and one woman gave me half a mark, and wished
me God speed ... Then on the last day of the year I came to the river
and found many drunkards.”
“Was that when you resolved to get on one of the river-boats?”
“_Ja_, Cornelis. As soon as I heard of the boats I saw where my chance
lay. But you might have knocked me over with a straw when I saw you
come on shore. That was good fortune, my friend... I have been thinking
much about the Germans, and I will tell you the truth. It is only
boldness that can baffle them. They are a most diligent people. They
will think of all likely difficulties, but not of all possible ones.
They have not much imagination. They are like steam engines which must
keep to prepared tracks. There they will hunt any man down, but let him
trek for open country and they will be at a loss. Therefore boldness,
my friend; for ever boldness. Remember as a nation they wear
spectacles, which means that they are always peering.”
Peter broke off to gloat over the wedges of geese and the strings of
wild swans that were always winging across those plains. His tale had
bucked me up wonderfully. Our luck had held beyond all belief, and I
had a kind of hope in the business now which had been wanting before.
That afternoon, too, I got another fillip. I came on deck for a breath
of air and found it pretty cold after the heat of the engine-room. So I
called to one of the deck hands to fetch me up my cloak from the
cabin—the same I had bought that first morning in the Greif village.
“_Der grune Mantel_?” the man shouted up, and I cried, “Yes”. But the
words seemed to echo in my ears, and long after he had given me the
garment I stood staring abstractedly over the bulwarks.
His tone had awakened a chord of memory, or, to be accurate, they had
given emphasis to what before had been only blurred and vague. For he
had spoken the words which Stumm had uttered behind his hand to
Gaudian. I had heard something like “Ühnmantl,” and could make nothing
of it. Now I was as certain of those words as of my own existence. They
had been “_Grune Mantel_”. _Grune Mantel_, whatever it might be, was
the name which Stumm had not meant me to hear, which was some talisman
for the task I had proposed, and which was connected in some way with
the mysterious von Einem.
This discovery put me in high fettle. I told myself that, considering
the difficulties, I had managed to find out a wonderful amount in a
very few days. It only shows what a man can do with the slenderest
evidence if he keeps chewing and chewing on it ...
Two mornings later we lay alongside the quays at Belgrade, and I took
the opportunity of stretching my legs. Peter had come ashore for a
smoke, and we wandered among the battered riverside streets, and looked
at the broken arches of the great railway bridge which the Germans were
working at like beavers. There was a big temporary pontoon affair to
take the railway across, but I calculated that the main bridge would be
ready inside a month. It was a clear, cold, blue day, and as one looked
south one saw ridge after ridge of snowy hills. The upper streets of
the city were still fairly whole, and there were shops open where food
could be got. I remember hearing English spoken, and seeing some Red
Cross nurses in the custody of Austrian soldiers coming from the
railway station.
It would have done me a lot of good to have had a word with them. I
thought of the gallant people whose capital this had been, how three
times they had flung the Austrians back over the Danube, and then had
only been beaten by the black treachery of their so-called allies.
Somehow that morning in Belgrade gave both Peter and me a new purpose
in our task. It was our business to put a spoke in the wheel of this
monstrous bloody Juggernaut that was crushing the life out of the
little heroic nations.
We were just getting ready to cast off when a distinguished party
arrived at the quay. There were all kinds of uniforms—German, Austrian,
and Bulgarian, and amid them one stout gentleman in a fur coat and a
black felt hat. They watched the barges up-anchor, and before we began
to jerk into line I could hear their conversation. The fur coat was
talking English.
“I reckon that’s pretty good noos, General,” it said; “if the English
have run away from Gally-poly we can use these noo consignments for the
bigger game. I guess it won’t be long before we see the British lion
moving out of Egypt with sore paws.”
They all laughed. “The privilege of that spectacle may soon be ours,”
was the reply.
I did not pay much attention to the talk; indeed I did not realize till
weeks later that that was the first tidings of the great evacuation of
Cape Helles. What rejoiced me was the sight of Blenkiron, as bland as a
barber among those swells. Here were two of the missionaries within
reasonable distance of their goal.