Chapter Eight. The Essen Barges

Greenmantle

by John Buchan

I lay for four days like a log in that garret bed. The storm died
down, the thaw set in, and the snow melted. The children played
about the doors and told stories at night round the fire. Stumm's
myrmidons no doubt beset every road and troubled the lives of
innocent wayfarers. But no one came near the cottage, and the fever
worked itself out while I lay in peace.

It was a bad bout, but on the fifth day it left me, and I lay,
as weak as a kitten, staring at the rafters and the little skylight.
It was a leaky, draughty old place, but the woman of the cottage had
heaped deerskins and blankets on my bed and kept me warm. She came
in now and then, and once she brought me a brew of some bitter herbs
which greatly refreshed me. A little thin porridge was all the food
I could eat, and some chocolate made from the slabs in my
rucksack.

I lay and dozed through the day, hearing the faint chatter of
children below, and getting stronger hourly. Malaria passes as
quickly as it comes and leaves a man little the worse, though this
was one of the sharpest turns I ever had. As I lay I thought, and my
thoughts followed curious lines. One queer thing was that Stumm and
his doings seemed to have been shot back into a lumber-room of my
brain and the door locked. He didn't seem to be a creature of the
living present, but a distant memory on which I could look calmly. I
thought a good deal about my battalion and the comedy of my present
position. You see I was getting better, for I called it comedy now,
not tragedy.

But chiefly I thought of my mission. All that wild day in the
snow it had seemed the merest farce. The three words Harry Bullivant
had scribbled had danced through my head in a crazy fandango. They
were present to me now, but coolly and sanely in all their
meagreness.

I remember that I took each one separately and chewed on it for
hours. Kasredin - there was nothing to be got out of that. Cancer -
there were too many meanings, all blind. V. I - that was the worst
gibberish of all.

Before this I had always taken the I as the letter of the
alphabet. I had thought the v. must stand for von, and I had
considered the German names beginning with I - Ingolstadt, Ingeburg,
Ingenohl, and all the rest of them. I had made a list of about
seventy at the British Museum before I left London.

Now I suddenly found myself taking the I as the numeral One.
Idly, not thinking what I was doing, I put it into German.

Then I nearly fell out of the bed. Von Einem - the name I had
heard at Gaudian's house, the name Stumm had spoken behind his hand,
the name to which Hilda was probably the prefix. It was a tremendous
discovery - the first real bit of light I had found. Harry Bullivant
knew that some man or woman called von Einem was at the heart of the
mystery. Stumm had spoken of the same personage with respect and in
connection with the work I proposed to do in raising the Moslem
Africans. If I found von Einem I would be getting very warm. What
was the word that Stumm had whispered to Gaudian and scared that
worthy? It had sounded like uhnmantl. If I could only get that
clear, I would solve the riddle.

I think that discovery completed my cure. At any rate on the
evening of the fifth day - it was Wednesday, the 29th of December - I
was well enough to get up. When the dark had fallen and it was too
late to fear a visitor, I came downstairs and, wrapped in my green
cape, took a seat by the fire.

As we sat there in the firelight, with the three white-headed
children staring at me with saucer eyes, and smiling when I looked
their way, the woman talked. Her man had gone to the wars on the
Eastern front, and the last she had heard from him he was in a Polish
bog and longing for his dry native woodlands. The struggle meant
little to her. It was an act of God, a thunderbolt out of the sky,
which had taken a husband from her, and might soon make her a widow
and her children fatherless. She knew nothing of its causes and
purposes, and thought of the Russians as a gigantic nation of
savages, heathens who had never been converted, and who would eat up
German homes if the good Lord and the brave German soldiers did not
stop them. I tried hard to find out if she had any notion of affairs
in the West, but she hadn't, beyond the fact that there was trouble
with the French. I doubt if she knew of England's share in it. She
was a decent soul, with no bitterness against anybody, not even the
Russians if they would spare her man.

That night I realized the crazy folly of war. When I saw the
splintered shell of Ypres and heard hideous tales of German doings, I
used to want to see the whole land of the Boche given up to fire and
sword. I thought we could never end the war properly without giving
the Huns some of their own medicine. But that woodcutter's cottage
cured me of such nightmares. I was for punishing the guilty but
letting the innocent go free. It was our business to thank God and
keep our hands clean from the ugly blunders to which Germany's
madness had driven her. What good would it do Christian folk to burn
poor little huts like this and leave children's bodies by the
wayside? To be able to laugh and to be merciful are the only things
that make man better than the beasts.

The place, as I have said, was desperately poor. The woman's
face had the skin stretched tight over the bones and that
transparency which means under-feeding; I fancied she did not have
the liberal allowance that soldiers' wives get in England. The
children looked better nourished, but it was by their mother's
sacrifice. I did my best to cheer them up. I told them long yarns
about Africa and lions and tigers, and I got some pieces of wood and
whittled them into toys. I am fairly good with a knife, and I carved
very presentable likenesses of a monkey, a springbok, and a
rhinoceros. The children went to bed hugging the first toys, I
expect, they ever possessed.

It was clear to me that I must leave as soon as possible. I had
to get on with my business, and besides, it was not fair to the
woman. Any moment I might be found here, and she would get into
trouble for harbouring me. I asked her if she knew where the Danube
was, and her answer surprised me. 'You will reach it in an hour's
walk,' she said. 'The track through the wood runs straight to the
ferry.'

Next morning after breakfast I took my departure. It was
drizzling weather, and I was feeling very lean. Before going I
presented my hostess and the children with two sovereigns apiece.
'It is English gold,' I said, 'for I have to travel among our enemies
and use our enemies' money. But the gold is good, and if you go to
any town they will change it for you. But I advise you to put it in
your stocking-foot and use it only if all else fails. You must keep
your home going, for some day there will be peace and your man will
come back from the wars.'

I kissed the children, shook the woman's hand, and went off down
the clearing. They had cried 'Auf Wiedersehen,' but it wasn't likely
I would ever see them again. The snow had all gone, except in patches
in the deep hollows. The ground was like a full sponge, and a cold
rain drifted in my eyes. After half an hour's steady trudge the
trees thinned, and presently I came out on a knuckle of open ground
cloaked in dwarf junipers. And there before me lay the plain, and a
mile off a broad brimming river.

I sat down and looked dismally at the prospect. The
exhilaration of my discovery the day before had gone. I had stumbled
on a worthless piece of knowledge, for I could not use it. Hilda von
Einem, if such a person existed and possessed the great secret, was
probably living in some big house in Berlin, and I was about as
likely to get anything out of her as to be asked to dine with the
Kaiser. Blenkiron might do something, but where on earth was
Blenkiron? I dared say Sir Walter would value the information, but I
could not get to Sir Walter. I was to go on to Constantinople,
running away from the people who really pulled the ropes. But if I
stayed I could do nothing, and I could not stay. I must go on and I
didn't see how I could go on. Every course seemed shut to me, and I
was in as pretty a tangle as any man ever stumbled into.

For I was morally certain that Stumm would not let the thing
drop. I knew too much, and besides I had outraged his pride. He
would beat the countryside till he got me, and he undoubtedly would
get me if I waited much longer. But how was I to get over the
border? My passport would be no good, for the number of that pass
would long ere this have been wired to every police-station in
Germany, and to produce it would be to ask for trouble. Without it I
could not cross the borders by any railway. My studies of the
Tourists' Guide had suggested that once I was in Austria I might find
things slacker and move about easier. I thought of having a try at
the Tyrol and I also thought of Bohemia. But these places were a
long way off, and there were several thousand chances each day that I
would be caught on the road.

This was Thursday, the 30th of December, the second last day of
the year. I was due in Constantinople on the 17th of January.
Constantinople! I had thought myself a long way from it in Berlin,
but now it seemed as distant as the moon.

But that big sullen river in front of me led to it. And as I
looked my attention was caught by a curious sight. On the far
eastern horizon, where the water slipped round a corner of hill,
there was a long trail of smoke. The streamers thinned out, and
seemed to come from some boat well round the corner, but I could see
at least two boats in view. Therefore there must be a long train of
barges, with a tug in tow.

I looked to the west and saw another such procession coming into
sight. First went a big river steamer - it can't have been much less
than 1,000 tons - and after came a string of barges. I counted no
less than six besides the tug. They were heavily loaded and their
draught must have been considerable, but there was plenty of depth in
the flooded river. A moment's reflection told me what I was looking
at. Once Sandy, in one of the discussions you have in hospital, had
told us just how the Germans munitioned their Balkan campaign. They
were pretty certain of dishing Serbia at the first go, and it was up
to them to get through guns and shells to the old Turk, who was
running pretty short in his first supply. Sandy said that they
wanted the railway, but they wanted still more the river, and they
could make certain of that in a week. He told us how endless strings
of barges, loaded up at the big factories of Westphalia, were moving
through the canals from the Rhine or the Elbe to the Danube. Once the
first reached Turkey, there would be regular delivery, you see - as
quick as the Turks could handle the stuff. And they didn't return
empty, Sandy said, but came back full of Turkish cotton and Bulgarian
beef and Rumanian corn. I don't know where Sandy got the knowledge,
but there was the proof of it before my eyes.

It was a wonderful sight, and I could have gnashed my teeth to
see those loads of munitions going snugly off to the enemy. I
calculated they would give our poor chaps hell in Gallipoli. And
then, as I looked, an idea came into my head and with it an eighth
part of a hope.

There was only one way for me to get out of Germany, and that
was to leave in such good company that I would be asked no questions.
That was plain enough. If I travelled to Turkey, for instance, in
the Kaiser's suite, I would be as safe as the mail; but if I went on
my own I was done. I had, so to speak, to get my passport inside
Germany, to join some caravan which had free marching powers. And
there was the kind of caravan before me - the Essen barges.

It sounded lunacy, for I guessed that munitions of war would be
as jealously guarded as old Hindenburg's health. All the safer, I
replied to myself, once I get there. If you are looking for a
deserter you don't seek him at the favourite regimental public-house.
If you're after a thief, among the places you'd be apt to leave
unsearched would be Scotland Yard.

It was sound reasoning, but how was I to get on board? Probably
the beastly things did not stop once in a hundred miles, and Stumm
would get me long before I struck a halting-place. And even if I did
get a chance like that, how was I to get permission to travel?

One step was clearly indicated - to get down to the river bank
at once. So I set off at a sharp walk across squelchy fields, till I
struck a road where the ditches had overflowed so as almost to meet
in the middle. The place was so bad that I hoped travellers might be
few. And as I trudged, my thoughts were busy with my prospects as a
stowaway. If I bought food, I might get a chance to lie snug on one
of the barges. They would not break bulk till they got to their
journey's end.

Suddenly I noticed that the steamer, which was now abreast me,
began to move towards the shore, and as I came over a low rise, I saw
on my left a straggling village with a church, and a small
landing-stage. The houses stood about a quarter of a mile from the
stream, and between them was a straight, poplar-fringed road.

Soon there could be no doubt about it. The procession was
coming to a standstill. The big tug nosed her way in and lay up
alongside the pier, where in that season of flood there was enough
depth of water. She signalled to the barges and they also started to
drop anchors, which showed that there must be at least two men aboard
each. Some of them dragged a bit and it was rather a cock- eyed
train that lay in mid-stream. The tug got out a gangway, and from
where I lay I saw half a dozen men leave it, carrying something on
their shoulders.

It could be only one thing - a dead body. Someone of the crew
must have died, and this halt was to bury him. I watched the
procession move towards the village and I reckoned they would take
some time there, though they might have wired ahead for a grave to be
dug. Anyhow, they would be long enough to give me a chance.

For I had decided upon the brazen course. Blenkiron had said
you couldn't cheat the Boche, but you could bluff him. I was going
to put up the most monstrous bluff. If the whole countryside was
hunting for Richard Hannay, Richard Hannay would walk through as a
pal of the hunters. For I remembered the pass Stumm had given me.
If that was worth a tinker's curse it should be good enough to
impress a ship's captain.

Of course there were a thousand risks. They might have heard of
me in the village and told the ship's party the story. For that
reason I resolved not to go there but to meet the sailors when they
were returning to the boat. Or the captain might have been warned
and got the number of my pass, in which case Stumm would have his
hands on me pretty soon. Or the captain might be an ignorant fellow
who had never seen a Secret Service pass and did not know what it
meant, and would refuse me transport by the letter of his
instructions. In that case I might wait on another convoy.

I had shaved and made myself a fairly respectable figure before
I left the cottage. It was my cue to wait for the men when they left
the church, wait on that quarter-mile of straight highway. I judged
the captain must be in the party. The village, I was glad to
observe, seemed very empty. I have my own notions about the
Bavarians as fighting men, but I am bound to say that, judging by my
observations, very few of them stayed at home.

That funeral took hours. They must have had to dig the grave,
for I waited near the road in a clump of cherry-trees, with my feet
in two inches of mud and water, till I felt chilled to the bone. I
prayed to God it would not bring back my fever, for I was only one
day out of bed. I had very little tobacco left in my pouch, but I
stood myself one pipe, and I ate one of the three cakes of chocolate
I still carried.

At last, well after midday, I could see the ship's party
returning. They marched two by two and I was thankful to see that
they had no villagers with them. I walked to the road, turned up it,
and met the vanguard, carrying my head as high as I knew how.

'Where's your captain?' I asked, and a man jerked his thumb over
his shoulder. The others wore thick jerseys and knitted caps, but
there was one man at the rear in uniform.

He was a short, broad man with a weather-beaten face and an
anxious eye.

'May I have a word with you, Herr Captain?' I said, with what I
hoped was a judicious blend of authority and conciliation.

He nodded to his companion, who walked on.

'Yes?' he asked rather impatiently.

I proffered him my pass. Thank Heaven he had seen the kind of
thing before, for his face at once took on that curious look which
one person in authority always wears when he is confronted with
another. He studied it closely and then raised his eyes.

'Well, Sir?' he said. 'I observe your credentials. What can I
do for you?'

'I take it you are bound for Constantinople?' I asked.

'The boats go as far as Rustchuk,' he replied. 'There the stuff
is transferred to the railway.'

'And you reach Rustchuk when?'

'In ten days, bar accidents. Let us say twelve to be safe.'

'I want to accompany you,' I said. 'In my profession, Herr
Captain, it is necessary sometimes to make journeys by other than the
common route. That is now my desire. I have the right to call upon
some other branch of our country's service to help me. Hence my
request.'

Very plainly he did not like it.

'I must telegraph about it. My instructions are to let no one
aboard, not even a man like you. I am sorry, Sir, but I must get
authority first before I can fall in with your desire. Besides, my
boat is ill-found. You had better wait for the next batch and ask
Dreyser to take you. I lost Walter today. He was ill when he came
aboard - a disease of the heart - but he would not be persuaded. And
last night he died.'

'Was that him you have been burying?' I asked.

'Even so. He was a good man and my wife's cousin, and now I
have no engineer. Only a fool of a boy from Hamburg. I have just
come from wiring to my owners for a fresh man, but even if he comes
by the quickest train he will scarcely overtake us before Vienna or
even Buda.'

I saw light at last.

'We will go together,' I said, 'and cancel that wire. For
behold, Herr Captain, I am an engineer, and will gladly keep an eye
on your boilers till we get to Rustchuk.'

He looked at me doubtfully.

'I am speaking truth,' I said. 'Before the war I was an
engineer in Damaraland. Mining was my branch, but I had a good
general training, and I know enough to run a river-boat. Have no
fear. I promise you I will earn my passage.'

His face cleared, and he looked what he was, an honest, good-
humoured North German seaman.

'Come then in God's name,' he cried, 'and we will make a
bargain. I will let the telegraph sleep. I require authority from
the Government to take a passenger, but I need none to engage a new
engineer.'

He sent one of the hands back to the village to cancel his wire.
In ten minutes I found myself on board, and ten minutes later we were
out in mid-stream and our tows were lumbering into line. Coffee was
being made ready in the cabin, and while I waited for it I picked up
the captain's binoculars and scanned the place I had left.

I saw some curious things. On the first road I had struck on
leaving the cottage there were men on bicycles moving rapidly. They
seemed to wear uniform. On the next parallel road, the one that ran
through the village, I could see others. I noticed, too, that
several figures appeared to be beating the intervening fields.

Stumm's cordon had got busy at last, and I thanked my stars that
not one of the villagers had seen me. I had not got away much too
soon, for in another half-hour he would have had me.