Trouble by The Waters of Babylon
From that moment I date the beginning of my madness. Suddenly I forgot
all cares and difficulties of the present and future and became
foolishly light-hearted. We were rushing towards the great battle where
men were busy at my proper trade. I realized how much I had loathed the
lonely days in Germany, and still more the dawdling week in
Constantinople. Now I was clear of it all, and bound for the clash of
armies. It didn’t trouble me that we were on the wrong side of the
battle line. I had a sort of instinct that the darker and wilder things
grew the better chance for us.
“Seems to me,” said Blenkiron, bending over me, “that this joy-ride is
going to come to an untimely end pretty soon. Peter’s right. That young
man will set the telegraph going, and we’ll be held up at the next
township.”
“He’s got to get to a telegraph office first,” I answered. “That’s
where we have the pull on him. He’s welcome to the screws we left
behind, and if he finds an operator before the evening I’m the worst
kind of a Dutchman. I’m going to break all the rules and bucket this
car for what she’s worth. Don’t you see that the nearer we get to
Erzerum the safer we are?”
“I don’t follow,” he said slowly. “At Erzerum I reckon they’ll be
waiting for us with the handcuffs. Why in thunder couldn’t those hairy
ragamuffins keep the little cuss safe? Your record’s a bit too
precipitous, Major, for the most innocent-minded military boss.”
“Do you remember what you said about the Germans being open to bluff?
Well, I’m going to put up the steepest sort of bluff. Of course they’ll
stop us. Rasta will do his damnedest. But remember that he and his
friends are not very popular with the Germans, and Madame von Einem is.
We’re her proteges, and the bigger the German swell I get before the
safer I’ll feel. We’ve got our passports and our orders, and he’ll be a
bold man that will stop us once we get into the German zone. Therefore
I’m going to hurry as fast as God will let me.”
It was a ride that deserved to have an epic written about it. The car
was good, and I handled her well, though I say it who shouldn’t. The
road in that big central plain was fair, and often I knocked fifty
miles an hour out of her. We passed troops by a circuit over the veld,
where we took some awful risks, and once we skidded by some transport
with our off wheels almost over the lip of a ravine. We went through
the narrow streets of Siwas like a fire-engine, while I shouted out in
German that we carried despatches for headquarters. We shot out of
drizzling rain into brief spells of winter sunshine, and then into a
snow blizzard which all but whipped the skin from our faces. And always
before us the long road unrolled, with somewhere at the end of it two
armies clinched in a death-grapple.
That night we looked for no lodging. We ate a sort of meal in the car
with the hood up, and felt our way on in the darkness, for the
headlights were in perfect order. Then we turned off the road for four
hours’ sleep, and I had a go at the map. Before dawn we started again,
and came over a pass into the vale of a big river. The winter dawn
showed its gleaming stretches, ice-bound among the sprinkled meadows. I
called to Blenkiron:
“I believe that river is the Euphrates,” I said.
“So,” he said, acutely interested. “Then that’s the waters of Babylon.
Great snakes, that I should have lived to see the fields where King
Nebuchadnezzar grazed! Do you know the name of that big hill, Major?”
“Ararat, as like as not,” I cried, and he believed me.
We were among the hills now, great, rocky, black slopes, and, seen
through side glens, a hinterland of snowy peaks. I remember I kept
looking for the _castrol_ I had seen in my dream. The thing had never
left off haunting me, and I was pretty clear now that it did not belong
to my South African memories. I am not a superstitious man, but the way
that little _kranz_ clung to my mind made me think it was a warning
sent by Providence. I was pretty certain that when I clapped eyes on it
I would be in for bad trouble.
All morning we travelled up that broad vale, and just before noon it
spread out wider, the road dipped to the water’s edge, and I saw before
me the white roofs of a town. The snow was deep now, and lay down to
the riverside, but the sky had cleared, and against a space of blue
heaven some peaks to the south rose glittering like jewels. The arches
of a bridge, spanning two forks of the stream, showed in front, and as
I slowed down at the bend a sentry’s challenge rang out from a
block-house. We had reached the fortress of Erzingjan, the headquarters
of a Turkish corps and the gate of Armenia.
I showed the man our passports, but he did not salute and let us move
on. He called another fellow from the guardhouse, who motioned us to
keep pace with him as he stumped down a side lane. At the other end was
a big barracks with sentries outside. The man spoke to us in Turkish,
which Hussin interpreted. There was somebody in that barracks who
wanted badly to see us.
“By the waters of Babylon we sat down and wept,” quoted Blenkiron
softly. “I fear, Major, we’ll soon be remembering Zion.”
I tried to persuade myself that this was merely the red tape of a
frontier fortress, but I had an instinct that difficulties were in
store for us. If Rasta had started wiring I was prepared to put up the
brazenest bluff, for we were still eighty miles from Erzerum, and at
all costs we were going to be landed there before night.
A fussy staff-officer met us at the door. At the sight of us he cried
to a friend to come and look.
“Here are the birds safe. A fat man and two lean ones and a savage who
looks like a Kurd. Call the guard and march them off. There’s no doubt
about their identity.”
“Pardon me, Sir,” I said, “but we have no time to spare and we’d like
to be in Erzerum before the dark. I would beg you to get through any
formalities as soon as possible. This man,” and I pointed to the
sentry, “has our passports.”
“Compose yourself,” he said impudently; “you’re not going on just yet,
and when you do it won’t be in a stolen car.” He took the passports and
fingered them casually. Then something he saw there made him cock his
eyebrows.
“Where did you steal these?” he asked, but with less assurance in his
tone.
I spoke very gently. “You seem to be the victim of a mistake, sir.
These are our papers. We are under orders to report ourselves at
Erzerum without an hour’s delay. Whoever hinders us will have to answer
to General von Liman. We will be obliged if you will conduct us at once
to the Governor.”
“You can’t see General Posselt,” he said; “this is my business. I have
a wire from Siwas that four men stole a car belonging to one of Enver
Damad’s staff. It describes you all, and says that two of you are
notorious spies wanted by the Imperial Government. What have you to say
to that?”
“Only that it is rubbish. My good Sir, you have seen our passes. Our
errand is not to be cried on the housetops, but five minutes with
General Posselt will make things clear. You will be exceedingly sorry
for it if you delay another minute.”
He was impressed in spite of himself, and after pulling his moustache
turned on his heel and left us. Presently he came back and said very
gruffly that the Governor would see us. We followed him along a
corridor into a big room looking out on the river, where an oldish
fellow sat in an arm-chair by a stove, writing letters with a fountain
pen.
This was Posselt, who had been Governor of Erzerum till he fell sick
and Ahmed Fevzi took his place. He had a peevish mouth and big blue
pouches below his eyes. He was supposed to be a good engineer and to
have made Erzerum impregnable, but the look on his face gave me the
impression that his reputation at the moment was a bit unstable.
The staff-officer spoke to him in an undertone.
“Yes, yes, I know,” he said testily. “Are these the men? They look a
pretty lot of scoundrels. What’s that you say? They deny it. But
they’ve got the car. They can’t deny that. Here, you,” and he fixed on
Blenkiron, “who the devil are you?”
Blenkiron smiled sleepily at him, not understanding one word, and I
took up the parable.
“Our passports, Sir, give our credentials,” I said. He glanced through
them, and his face lengthened.
“They’re right enough. But what about this story of stealing a car?”
“It is quite true,” I said, “but I would prefer to use a pleasanter
word. You will see from our papers that every authority on the road is
directed to give us the best transport. Our own car broke down, and
after a long delay we got some wretched horses. It is vitally important
that we should be in Erzerum without delay, so I took the liberty of
appropriating an empty car we found outside an inn. I am sorry for the
discomfort of the owners, but our business was too grave to wait.”
“But the telegram says you are notorious spies!”
I smiled. “Who sent the telegram?”
“I see no reason why I shouldn’t give you his name. It was Rasta Bey.
You’ve picked an awkward fellow to make an enemy of.”
I did not smile but laughed. “Rasta!” I cried. “He’s one of Enver’s
satellites. That explains many things. I should like a word with you
alone, Sir.”
He nodded to the staff-officer, and when he had gone I put on my most
Bible face and looked as important as a provincial mayor at a royal
visit.
“I can speak freely,” I said, “for I am speaking to a soldier of
Germany. There is no love lost between Enver and those I serve. I need
not tell you that. This Rasta thought he had found a chance of delaying
us, so he invents this trash about spies. Those Comitadjis have spies
on the brain ... Especially he hates Frau von Einem.”
He jumped at the name.
“You have orders from her?” he asked, in a respectful tone.
“Why, yes,” I answered, “and those orders will not wait.”
He got up and walked to a table, whence he turned a puzzled face on me.
“I’m torn in two between the Turks and my own countrymen. If I please
one I offend the other, and the result is a damnable confusion. You can
go on to Erzerum, but I shall send a man with you to see that you
report to headquarters there. I’m sorry, gentlemen, but I’m obliged to
take no chances in this business. Rasta’s got a grievance against you,
but you can easily hide behind the lady’s skirts. She passed through
this town two days ago.”
Ten minutes later we were coasting through the slush of the narrow
streets with a stolid German lieutenant sitting beside me.
The afternoon was one of those rare days when in the pauses of snow you
have a spell of weather as mild as May. I remembered several like it
during our winter’s training in Hampshire. The road was a fine one,
well engineered, and well kept too, considering the amount of traffic.
We were little delayed, for it was sufficiently broad to let us pass
troops and transport without slackening pace. The fellow at my side was
good-humoured enough, but his presence naturally put the lid on our
conversation. I didn’t want to talk, however. I was trying to piece
together a plan, and making very little of it, for I had nothing to go
upon. We must find Hilda von Einem and Sandy, and between us we must
wreck the Greenmantle business. That done, it didn’t matter so much
what happened to us. As I reasoned it out, the Turks must be in a bad
way, and, unless they got a fillip from Greenmantle, would crumple up
before the Russians. In the rout I hoped we might get a chance to
change our sides. But it was no good looking so far forward; the first
thing was to get to Sandy.
Now I was still in the mood of reckless bravado which I had got from
bagging the car. I did not realize how thin our story was, and how
easily Rasta might have a big graft at headquarters. If I had, I would
have shot out the German lieutenant long before we got to Erzerum, and
found some way of getting mixed up in the ruck of the population.
Hussin could have helped me to that. I was getting so confident since
our interview with Posselt that I thought I could bluff the whole
outfit.
But my main business that afternoon was pure nonsense. I was trying to
find my little hill. At every turn of the road I expected to see the
_castrol_ before us. You must know that ever since I could stand I have
been crazy about high mountains. My father took me to Basutoland when I
was a boy, and I reckon I have scrambled over almost every bit of
upland south of the Zambesi, from the Hottentots Holland to the
Zoutpansberg, and from the ugly yellow kopjes of Damaraland to the
noble cliffs of Mont aux Sources. One of the things I had looked
forward to in coming home was the chance of climbing the Alps. But now
I was among peaks that I fancied were bigger than the Alps, and I could
hardly keep my eyes on the road. I was pretty certain that my _castrol_
was among them, for that dream had taken an almighty hold on my mind.
Funnily enough, I was ceasing to think it a place of evil omen, for one
soon forgets the atmosphere of nightmare. But I was convinced that it
was a thing I was destined to see, and to see pretty soon.
Darkness fell when we were some miles short of the city, and the last
part was difficult driving. On both sides of the road transport and
engineers’ stores were parked, and some of it strayed into the highway.
I noticed lots of small details—machine-gun detachments, signalling
parties, squads of stretcher-bearers—which mean the fringe of an army,
and as soon as the night began the white fingers of searchlights began
to grope in the skies.
And then, above the hum of the roadside, rose the voice of the great
guns. The shells were bursting four or five miles away, and the guns
must have been as many more distant. But in that upland pocket of plain
in the frosty night they sounded most intimately near. They kept up
their solemn litany, with a minute’s interval between each—no _rafale_
which rumbles like a drum, but the steady persistence of artillery
exactly ranged on a target. I judged they must be bombarding the outer
forts, and once there came a loud explosion and a red glare as if a
magazine had suffered.
It was a sound I had not heard for five months, and it fairly crazed
me. I remembered how I had first heard it on the ridge before Laventie.
Then I had been half-afraid, half-solemnized, but every nerve had been
quickened. Then it had been the new thing in my life that held me
breathless with anticipation; now it was the old thing, the thing I had
shared with so many good fellows, my proper work, and the only task for
a man. At the sound of the guns I felt that I was moving in natural air
once more. I felt that I was coming home.
We were stopped at a long line of ramparts, and a German sergeant
stared at us till he saw the lieutenant beside me, when he saluted and
we passed on. Almost at once we dipped into narrow twisting streets,
choked with soldiers, where it was hard business to steer. There were
few lights—only now and then the flare of a torch which showed the grey
stone houses, with every window latticed and shuttered. I had put out
my headlights and had only side lamps, so we had to pick our way
gingerly through the labyrinth. I hoped we would strike Sandy’s
quarters soon, for we were all pretty empty, and a frost had set in
which made our thick coats seem as thin as paper.
The lieutenant did the guiding. We had to present our passports, and I
anticipated no more difficulty than in landing from the boat at
Boulogne. But I wanted to get it over, for my hunger pinched me and it
was fearsome cold. Still the guns went on, like hounds baying before a
quarry. The city was out of range, but there were strange lights on the
ridge to the east.
At last we reached our goal and marched through a fine old carved
archway into a courtyard, and thence into a draughty hall.
“You must see the _Sektionschef_,” said our guide. I looked round to
see if we were all there, and noticed that Hussin had disappeared. It
did not matter, for he was not on the passports.
We followed as we were directed through an open door. There was a man
standing with his back towards us looking at a wall map, a very big man
with a neck that bulged over his collar. I would have known that neck
among a million. At the sight of it I made a half-turn to bolt back. It
was too late, for the door had closed behind us and there were two
armed sentries beside it.
The man slewed round and looked into my eyes. I had a despairing hope
that I might bluff it out, for I was in different clothes and had
shaved my beard. But you cannot spend ten minutes in a death-grapple
without your adversary getting to know you.
He went very pale, then recollected himself and twisted his features
into the old grin.
“So,” he said, “the little Dutchmen! We meet after many days.”
It was no good lying or saying anything. I shut my teeth and waited.
“And you, Herr Blenkiron? I never liked the look of you. You babbled
too much, like all your damned Americans.”
“I guess your personal dislikes haven’t got anything to do with the
matter,” said Blenkiron, calmly. “If you’re the boss here, I’ll thank
you to cast your eye over these passports, for we can’t stand waiting
for ever.”
This fairly angered him. “I’ll teach you manners,” he cried, and took a
step forward to reach for Blenkiron’s shoulder—the game he had twice
played with me.
Blenkiron never took his hands from his coat pockets. “Keep your
distance,” he drawled in a new voice. “I’ve got you covered, and I’ll
make a hole in your bullet head if you lay a hand on me.”
With an effort Stumm recovered himself. He rang a bell and fell to
smiling. An orderly appeared to whom he spoke in Turkish, and presently
a file of soldiers entered the room.
“I’m going to have you disarmed, gentlemen,” he said. “We can conduct
our conversation more pleasantly without pistols.”
It was idle to resist. We surrendered our arms, Peter almost in tears
with vexation. Stumm swung his legs over a chair, rested his chin on
the back and looked at me.
“Your game is up, you know,” he said. “These fools of Turkish police
said the Dutchmen were dead, but I had the happier inspiration. I
believed the good God had spared them for me. When I got Rasta’s
telegram I was certain, for your doings reminded me of a little trick
you once played me on the Schwandorf road. But I didn’t think to find
this plump old partridge,” and he smiled at Blenkiron. “Two eminent
American engineers and their servant bound for Mesopotamia on business
of high Government importance! It was a good lie; but if I had been in
Constantinople it would have had a short life. Rasta and his friends
are no concern of mine. You can trick them as you please. But you have
attempted to win the confidence of a certain lady, and her interests
are mine. Likewise you have offended me, and I do not forgive. By God,”
he cried, his voice growing shrill with passion, “by the time I have
done with you your mothers in their graves will weep that they ever
bore you!”
It was Blenkiron who spoke. His voice was as level as the chairman’s of
a bogus company, and it fell on that turbid atmosphere like acid on
grease.
“I don’t take no stock in high-falutin’. If you’re trying to scare me
by that dime-novel talk I guess you’ve hit the wrong man. You’re like
the sweep that stuck in the chimney, a bit too big for your job. I
reckon you’ve a talent for romance that’s just wasted in soldiering.
But if you’re going to play any ugly games on me I’d like you to know
that I’m an American citizen, and pretty well considered in my own
country and in yours, and you’ll sweat blood for it later. That’s a
fair warning, Colonel Stumm.”
I don’t know what Stumm’s plans were, but that speech of Blenkiron’s
put into his mind just the needed amount of uncertainty. You see, he
had Peter and me right enough, but he hadn’t properly connected
Blenkiron with us, and was afraid either to hit out at all three, or to
let Blenkiron go. It was lucky for us that the American had cut such a
dash in the Fatherland.
“There is no hurry,” he said blandly. “We shall have long happy hours
together. I’m going to take you all home with me, for I am a hospitable
soul. You will be safer with me than in the town gaol, for it’s a
trifle draughty. It lets things in, and it might let things out.”
Again he gave an order, and we were marched out, each with a soldier at
his elbow. The three of us were bundled into the back seat of the car,
while two men sat before us with their rifles between their knees, one
got up behind on the baggage rack, and one sat beside Stumm’s
chauffeur. Packed like sardines we moved into the bleak streets, above
which the stars twinkled in ribbons of sky.
Hussin had disappeared from the face of the earth, and quite right too.
He was a good fellow, but he had no call to mix himself up in our
troubles.