The Complete Richard Hannay: The Thirty-Nine Steps , Greenmantle , Mr Standfas

by John Buchan

  ‘There’s a stream ahead of us,’ I said to Hussin. ‘Is it fordable?’

  ‘It is only a trickle,’ he said, coughing. ‘This accursed mist is from Eblis.’ But I knew long before we reached it that it was no trickle. It was a hill stream coming down in spate, and, as I soon guessed, in a deep ravine. Presently we were at its edge, one long whirl of yeasty falls and brown rapids. We could as soon get horses over it as to the topmost cliffs of the Palantuken.

  Hussin stared at it in consternation. ‘May Allah forgive my folly, for I should have known. We must return to the highway and find a bridge. My sorrow, that I should have led by lords so ill.’

  Back over that moor we went with my spirits badly damped. We had none too long a start, and Hilda von Einem would rouse heaven and earth to catch us up. Hussin was forcing the pace, for his anxiety was as great as mine.

  Before we reached the road the mist blew back and revealed a wedge of country right across to the hills beyond the river. It was a clear view, every object standing out wet and sharp in the light of morning. It showed the bridge with horsemen drawn up across it, and it showed, too, cavalry pickets moving along the road.

  They saw us at the same instant. A word was passed down the road, a shrill whistle blew, and the pickets put their horses at the bank and started across the moor.

  ‘Did I not say this mist was from Eblis?’ growled Hussin, as we swung round and galloped back on our tracks. ‘These cursed Zaptiehs have seen us, and our road is cut.’

  I was for trying the stream at all costs, but Hussin pointed out that it would do us no good. The cavalry beyond the bridge was moving up the other bank. ‘There is a path through the hills that I know, but it must be travelled on foot. If we can increase our lead and the mist cloaks us, there is yet a chance.’

  It was a weary business plodding up to the skirts of the hills. We had the pursuit behind us now, and that put an edge on every difficulty. There were long banks of broken screes, I remember, where the snow slipped in wreaths from under our feet. Great boulders had to be circumvented, and patches of bog, where the streams from the snows first made contact with the plains, mired us to our girths. Happily the mist was down again, but this, though it hindered the chase, lessened the chances of Hussin finding the path.

  He found it nevertheless. There was the gully and the rough mule-track leading upwards. But there also had been a landslip, quite recent from the marks. A large scar of raw earth had broken across the hillside, which with the snow above it looked like a slice cut out of an iced chocolate-cake.

  We stared blankly for a second, till we recognized its hopelessness.

  ‘I’m trying for the crags,’ I said. ‘Where there once was a way another can be found.’

  ‘And be picked off at their leisure by these marksmen,’ said Hussin grimly. ‘Look!’

  The mist had opened again, and a glance behind showed me the pursuit closing up on us. They were now less than three hundred yards off. We turned our horses and made off east-ward along the skirts of the cliffs.

  Then Sandy spoke for the first time. ‘I don’t know how you fellows feel, but I’m not going to be taken. There’s nothing much to do except to find a place and put up a fight. We can sell our lives dearly.’

  ‘That’s about all,’ said Blenkiron cheerfully. He had suffered such tortures on that gallop that he welcomed any kind of stationary fight.

  ‘Serve out the arms,’ said Sandy.

  The Companions all carried rifles slung across their shoulders. Hussin, from a deep saddle-bag, brought out rifles and bandoliers for the rest of us. As I laid mine across my saddle-bow I saw it was a German Mauser of the latest pattern.

  ‘It’s hell-for-leather till we find a place for a stand,’ said Sandy. ‘The game’s against us this time.’

  Once more we entered the mist, and presently found better going on a long stretch of even slope. Then came a rise, and on the crest of it I saw the sun. Presently we dipped into bright daylight and looked down on a broad glen, with a road winding up it to a pass in the range. I had expected this. It was one way to the Palantuken pass, some miles south of the house where we had been lodged.

  And then, as I looked southward, I saw what I had been watching for for days. A little hill split the valley, and on its top was a kranz of rocks. It was the castrol of my persistent dream.

  On that I promptly took charge. ‘There’s our fort,’ I cried. ‘If we once get there we can hold it for a week. Sit down and ride for it.’

  We bucketed down that hillside like men possessed, even Blenkiron sticking on manfully among the twists and turns and slithers. Presently we were on the road and were racing past marching infantry and gun teams and empty wagons. I noted that most seemed to be moving downward and few going up. Hussin screamed some words in Turkish that secured us a passage, but indeed our crazy speed left them staring. Out of a corner of my eye I saw that Sandy had flung off most of his wrappings and seemed to be all a dazzle of rich colour. But I had thought for nothing except the little hill, now almost fronting us across the shallow glen.

  No horses could breast that steep. We urged them into the hollow, and then hastily dismounted, humped the packs, and began to struggle up the side of the castrol. It was strewn with great boulders, which gave a kind of cover that very soon was needed. For, snatching a glance back, I saw that our pursuers were on the road above us and were getting ready to shoot.

  At normal times we would have been easy marks, but, fortunately, wisps and streamers of mist now clung about that hollow. The rest could fend for themselves, so I stuck to Blenkiron and dragged him, wholly breathless, by the least exposed route. Bullets spattered now and then against the rocks, and one sang unpleasantly near my head. In this way we covered three-fourths of the distance, and had only the bare dozen yards where the gradient eased off up to the edge of the kranz.

  Blenkiron got hit in the leg, our only casualty. There was nothing for it but to carry him, so I swung him on my shoulders, and with a bursting heart did that last lap. It was hottish work, and the bullets were pretty thick about us, but we all got safely to the kranz and a short scramble took us over the edge. I laid Blenkiron inside the castrol and started to prepare our defence.

  We had little time to do it. Out of the thin fog figures were coming, crouching in cover. The place we were in was a natural redoubt, except that there were no loopholes or sandbags. We had to show our heads over the rim to shoot, but the danger was lessened by the superb field of fire given by those last dozen yards of glacis. I posted the men and waited, and Blenkiron, with a white face, insisted on taking his share, announcing that he used to be handy with a gun.

  I gave the order that no man was to shoot till the enemy had come out of the rocks on to the glacis. The thing ran right round the top, and we had to watch all sides to prevent them getting us in flank or rear. Hussin’s rifle cracked out presently from the back, so my precautions had not been needless.

  We were all three fair shots, though none of us up to Peter’s miraculous standard, and the Companions, too, made good practice. The Mauser was the weapon I knew best, and I didn’t miss much. The attackers never had a chance, for their only hope was to rush us by numbers, and, the whole party being not above two dozen, they were far too few. I think we killed three, for their bodies were left lying, and wounded at least six, while the rest fell back towards the road. In a quarter of an hour it was all over.

  ‘They are dogs of Kurds,’ I heard Hussin say fiercely. ‘Only a Kurdish giaour would fire on the livery of the Kaába.’

  Then I had a good look at Sandy. He had discarded shawls and wrappings, and stood up in the strangest costume man ever wore in battle. Somehow he had procured field-boots and an old pair of riding-breeches. Above these, reaching well below his middle, he had a wonderful silken jibbah or ephod of a bright emerald. I call it silk, but it was like no silk I have ever known, so exquisite in the mesh, with such a sheen and depth in it. Some strange pattern was woven on the breast, which in th
e dim light I could not trace. I’ll warrant no rarer or costlier garment was ever exposed to lead on a bleak winter hill.

  Sandy seemed unconscious of his garb. His eye, listless no more, scanned the hollow. ‘That’s only the overture,’ he cried. ‘The opera will soon begin. We must put a breastwork up in these gaps or they’ll pick us off from a thousand yards.’

  I had meantime roughly dressed Blenkiron’s wound with a linen rag which Hussin provided. It was from a ricochet bullet which had chipped into his left shin. Then I took a hand with the others in getting up earthworks to complete the circuit of the defence. It was no easy job, for we wrought only with our knives and had to dig deep down below the snowy gravel. As we worked I took stock of our refuge.

  The castrol was a rough circle about ten yards in diameter, its interior filled with boulders and loose stones, and its parapet about four feet high. The mist had cleared for a considerable space, and I could see the immediate surroundings. West, beyond the hollow, was the road we had come, where now the remnants of the pursuit were clustered. North, the hill fell steeply to the valley bottom, but to the south, after a dip there was a ridge which shut the view. East lay another fork of the stream, the chief fork I guessed, and it was evidently followed by the main road to the pass, for I saw it crowded with transport. The two roads seemed to converge somewhere farther south of my sight.

  I guessed we could not be very far from the front, for the noise of guns sounded very near, both the sharp crack of the field-pieces, and the deeper boom of the howitzers. More, I could hear the chatter of the machine-guns, a magpie note among the baying of hounds. I even saw the bursting of Russian shells, evidently trying to reach the main road. One big fellow – an eight-inch – landed not ten yards from a convoy to the east of us, and another in the hollow through which we had come. These were clearly ranging shots, and I wondered if the Russians had observation-posts on the heights to mark them. If so, they might soon try a curtain, and we should be very near its edge. It would be an odd irony if we were the target of friendly shells.

  ‘By the Lord Harry,’ I heard Sandy say, ‘if we had a brace of machine-guns we could hold this place against a division.’

  ‘What price shells?’ I asked. ‘If they get a gun up they can blow us to atoms in ten minutes.’

  ‘Please God the Russians keep them too busy for that,’ was his answer.

  With anxious eyes I watched our enemies on the road. They seemed to have grown in numbers. They were signalling, too, for a white flag fluttered. Then the mist rolled down on us again, and our prospect was limited to ten yards of vapour.

  ‘Steady,’ I cried; ‘they may try to rush us at any moment. Every man keep his eye on the edge of the fog, and shoot at the first sign.’

  For nearly half an hour by my watch we waited in that queer white world, our eyes smarting with the strain of peering. The sound of the guns seemed to be hushed, and everything grown deathly quiet. Blenkiron’s squeal, as he knocked his wounded leg against a rock, made every man start.

  Then out of the mist there came a voice.

  It was a woman’s voice, high, penetrating, and sweet, but it spoke in no tongue I knew. Only Sandy understood. He made a sudden movement as if to defend himself against a blow.

  The speaker came into clear sight on the glacis a yard or two away. Mine was the first face she saw.

  ‘I come to offer terms,’ she said in English. ‘Will you permit me to enter?’

  I could do nothing except take off my cap and say, ‘Yes, ma’am.’ Blenkiron, snuggled up against the parapet, was cursing furiously below his breath.

  She climbed up the kranz and stepped over the edge as lightly as a deer. Her clothes were strange – spurred boots and breeches over which fell a short green kirtle. A little cap skewered with a jewelled pin was on her head, and a cape of some coarse country cloth hung from her shoulders. She had rough gauntlets on her hands, and she carried for weapon a riding-whip. The fog-crystals clung to her hair, I remember, and a silvery film of fog lay on her garments.

  I had never before thought of her as beautiful. Strange, uncanny, wonderful, if you like, but the word beauty had too kindly and human a sound for such a face. But as she stood with heightened colour, her eyes like stars, her poise like a wild bird’s, I had to confess that she had her own loveliness. She might be a devil, but she was also a queen. I considered that there might be merits in the prospect of riding by her side into Jerusalem.

  Sandy stood rigid, his face very grave and set. She held out both hands to him, speaking softly in Turkish. I noticed that the six Companions had disappeared from the castrol and were somewhere out of sight on the farther side.

  I do not know what she said, but from her tone, and above all from her eyes, I judged that she was pleading – pleading for his return, for his partnership in her great adventure; pleading, for all I knew, for his love.

  His expression was like a death-mask, his brows drawn tight in a little frown and his jaw rigid.

  ‘Madam,’ he said, ‘I ask you to tell your business quick and to tell it in English. My friends must hear it as well as me.’

  ‘Your friends!’ she cried. ‘What has a prince to do with these hirelings? Your slaves, perhaps, but not your friends.’

  ‘My friends,’ Sandy repeated grimly. ‘You must know, Madam, that I am a British officer.’

  That was beyond doubt a clean staggering stroke. What she had thought of his origin God knows, but she had never dreamed of this. Her eyes grew larger and more lustrous, her lips parted as if to speak, but her voice failed her. Then by an effort she recovered herself, and out of that strange face went all the glow of youth and ardour. It was again the unholy mask I had first known.

  ‘And these others?’ she asked in a level voice.

  ‘One is a brother officer of my regiment. The other is an American friend. But all three of us are on the same errand. We came east to destroy Greenmantle and your devilish ambitions. You have yourself destroyed your prophets, and now it is your turn to fail and disappear. Make no mistake, Madam; that folly is over. I will tear this sacred garment into a thousand pieces and scatter them on the wind. The people wait today for the revelation, but none will come. You may kill us if you can, but we have at least crushed a lie and done service to our country.’

  I would not have taken my eyes from her face for a king’s ransom. I have written that she was a queen, and of that there is no manner of doubt. She had the soul of a conqueror, for not a flicker of weakness or disappointment marred her air. Only pride and the stateliest resolution looked out of her eyes.

  ‘I said I came to offer terms. I will still offer them, though they are other than I thought. For the fat American, I will send him home safely to his own country. I do not make war on such as he. He is Germany’s foe, not mine. You,’ she said, turning fiercely on me, ‘I will hang before dusk.’

  Never in my life had I been so pleased. I had got my revenge at last. This woman had singled me out above the others as the object of her wrath, and I almost loved her for it.

  She turned to Sandy, and the fierceness went out of her face.

  ‘You seek the truth,’ she said. ‘So also do I, and if we use a lie it is only to break down a greater. You are of my household in spirit, and you alone of all men I have seen are fit to ride with me on my mission. Germany may fail, but I shall not fail. I offer you the greatest career that mortal has known. I offer you a task which will need every atom of brain and sinew and courage. Will you refuse that destiny?’

  I do not know what effect this vapouring might have had in hot scented rooms, or in the languor of some rich garden; but up on that cold hill-top it was as unsubstantial as the mist around us. It sounded not even impressive, only crazy.

  ‘I stay with my friends,’ said Sandy.

  ‘Then I will offer more. I will save your friends. They, too, shall share in my triumph.’

  This was too much for Blenkiron. He scrambled to his feet to speak the protest that had been wrung f
rom his soul, forgot his game leg, and rolled back on the ground with a groan.

  Then she seemed to make a last appeal. She spoke in Turkish now, and I do not know what she said, but I judged it was the plea of a woman to her lover. Once more she was the proud beauty, but there was a tremor in her pride – I had almost written tenderness. To listen to her was like horrid treachery, like eavesdropping on something pitiful. I know my cheeks grew scarlet and Blenkiron turned away his head.

  Sandy’s face did not move. He spoke in English.

  ‘You can offer me nothing that I desire,’ he said. ‘I am the servant of my country, and her enemies are mine. I can have neither part nor lot with you. That is my answer, Madam von Einem.’

  Then her steely restraint broke. It was like a dam giving before a pent-up mass of icy water. She tore off one of her gauntlets and hurled it in his face. Implacable hate looked out of her eyes.

  ‘I have done with you,’ she cried. ‘You have scorned me, but you have dug your own grave.’

  She leaped on the parapet and the next second was on the glacis. Once more the mist had fled, and across the hollow I saw a field-gun in place and men around it who were not Turkish. She waved her hand to them, and hastened down the hillside.

  But at that moment I heard the whistle of a long-range Russian shell. Among the boulders there was the dull shock of an explosion and a mushroom of red earth. It all passed in an instant of time: I saw the gunners on the road point their hands and I heard them cry; I heard too, a kind of sob from Blenkiron – all this before I realized myself what had happened. The next thing I saw was Sandy, already beyond the glacis, leaping with great bounds down the hill. They were shooting at him, but he heeded them not. For the space of a minute he was out of sight, and his whereabouts was shown only by the patter of bullets.