Greenmantle

Two Dutchmen

I was a bit afraid that something might have turned up in Lisbon to discredit us, and tha

id was the only way to play a part well. Upon my soul, before we got to Holland I was not very clear in my own mind what my past had been. Indeed the danger was that the

ermany at once, and when the agent on the quay to

otting round our part of the front before Loos. I heard a woman speaking pretty clean-cut English, which amid the hoarse Dutch jabber sounded like a lark among crows. There w

en up answering Peter's questions. He had never been in Europe before, and formed a high opinion of the farming. He said he reckoned that such

ain, and we were all shepherded into a big bare waiting-room where a large stove burned. They took us two at a time into an inner room for examination. I had explained to Peter all about this formality, but I was glad we went in together, for they made us strip to the ski

ame in with a paper in his hand. He was a fresh-faced l

ndt,' he

odd

rr Pienaar?' he

time you would not have been required to go through this ceremony. We have been advised of your coming, and I am instruct

ho had forgotten his school-days, found a bit hard to follow. He was unfit for active service, because of his eyes and a weak heart, but he was a desperate fire-eater in that stuffy restaurant. By his way of it German

with our under-sea boats we will show them what our navy can do. For a year they have been wasting their time in bra

rt sunburnt man came in and our friend sprang up an

h African Dutch, He

well that we had taken some pains with our story, for this man had been years in German South West, and knew

story to perfection, not pitching it too high, and asking me now and t

t understand slimness in this land. If you are honest you will be rewarded, but if you dare to play

Germans or Germany's slaves. But so long as she

ers, and you have suffered for it. You are no more a nation. In Germany we put discipline first and last, and therefore we

d yet met. He was a white man and I could have worked

eyes. No wonder, poor devils, for they were coming back from the Yser or the Ypres salient. I would have liked to talk to them, but officially of course I knew no German, and the conversation I overheard did not signify much. It was mostly about r

here the platform was crowded with drafts waiting to go westward. We saw no signs of any scarcity of food, such as the English newspapers wrote about. We had an excellent dinner at the station restaurant, which, with

nd we passed through dripping towns, with the lights shining from the wet streets. As we went eastward the lighting seemed to grow more generous. After the murk of London it was queer to slip through garish stations with a hundred arc lights glowing, and to see long lines of lamps running to the horiz

r scanty luggage to a droschke, for there seemed to be no porters. Our escort ga

ter. 'Of a truth the Ger

nt nodded go

th,' he said, 'as their ene

ant started on the telephone. He began by being dictatorial, then he seemed to be switched on to higher authorities, for he grew more polite, and at the end he fairly crawled. He made some arrangement

ose mustard-coloured abominations which the Portuguese affect and which made him hobble like a Chinese lady. He had a scarlet satin tie which you could hear a mile off. My beard had grown to quite a respectable length, and I trimmed it like General Smuts'. Peter's was the kind of loose flapping thing the taakhaar loves, which has scarcely ever been shaved, and

eir wearers generally looked like dug-outs or office fellows. We had a glimpse of the squat building which housed the General Staff and took off our hats to it. Then we stared at the Marinamt, and I wondered what plots were hatching there behind old Tirpitz's whiskers. The capital gave one an impression of ugly cleanness and a sort of dreary effectiveness. And yet I fo

ere ushered into a big room with a polished floor on which Peter nearly sat down. There was a log fire burning, and seated at a table was a little man in spectacles with his hair brushed back from hi

Pienaar?' he asked, lo

ack-and-white ribbon of the Iron Cross showed at a buttonhole. His tunic was all wrinkled and strained as if it could scarcely contain his huge chest, and mighty hands were clasped over his stomach. That man must have had the length of reach of a gorilla. He had a great

time, and till that moment I wasn't sure that it existed. Here was the German of caricature, the real German, the fel

ary. His Dutch was slow and careful, but good-too good for Peter. He had a paper before him and was asking us questions from it. They did not a

talk to them, Excellency,' he said in German.

you get in German South West. 'You have heard of me,' he

t off the chief Baviaan's head and sent it i

and then to us: 'So I treat my enemies, and so will Germany treat hers. Yo

ss. Peter was watching him from below his eyelids

put his elbows on the table

and pig-dogs, they had the game in their hands and they flung it away. We could have raised a fire that would have burne

s what I think of your idiot general,' he said, 'and of all y

very glum

to boast of, mostly clerks and farmers and half-castes, and no soldier worth the name to lead them, but it

d Peter sulkily. 'At any rate he wasn't afra

r that. You Dutchmen have always a feather-bed to fall on. You can always turn tr

eter, 'is a ve

haps? But, man, what can you bring? What can you offer? You and your Dutch are lying in the dust with the yoke on your necks. The Pretoria lawyers have talked you round. You see that map,' and he pointed to a big one on the wall.

ing what he w

If we gave you ten million marks and sent you back you could do nothing. Stir up a village row, perhaps, and shoot a policeman.

honest in some things, and the

d, 'that is

's name can you d

rmany and starting a revolution among the natives. Stumm fl

fellow this Stumm was, and as he talked I thought of my mission, whic

ician. You speak truth. South Africa is a closed door for the present, and the key to it is elsewhere. H

tle Boer. It will be a new thing to

ut the world with little expeditions. I do not know where the places are, though I read of them in the papers. But I know my Africa. You want to beat them here in Eu

enhayn,' said

so weak in Europe that a child can crush her. That is England's way. She cares more for her Empire than for what may happen to her allies. So I say press and still p

ted and the Under-Secretar

we to press? The accursed English hold the sea. We cannot ship men or guns there. So

there, ready f

s sake show it

that it was shut, as if what

tribes, the Angoni, the Masai, the Manyumwezi, and above all the Somalis of the north, and the dwellers on the upper Nile. The British recruit their black

one,' said the

said quietly. 'We tw

understand a language well, it is not very easy when you are interrupted not to show that you know it, either by a direct answer, or by referring to the interruption in what you say ne

though he may hate us he does our will. You Germans are like the English; you are too big folk to understand plain men. "Civilize," you cry. "Educate," say the English. The black man obeys a

air,' said Stumm, b

e. They would be like dried grasses to catch fire if you used the flint and steel of their religion. Look what the English suffered from a crazy Mullah who ruled only a dozen villages. Once get the flames going and they w

is hand over his mouth, but I caught his words. They were: 'This is th

eels. He nodded towards Peter. 'Take this man away with you. W

a puzzled face and

ou on that account. Dreams sometimes come true, when an army

,' I

il do you mea

the Mussulman lands in your power. It is for you to show us how to kindle a holy war,

rtly, and glanced at the officia

I do not believe you,' I said slowly. 'You play a game with

f my seat. His great hands clutched my shoulders, and his thumbs gouged my armpits. I felt as if I were in the grip of a big ape.

umm, who owns you as a Kaffir owns his mongrel. Germany may have some

r country, so queer that I had had no time to remember that for the first time in my life I had been bullied without hitting back. When I realized it I