Greenmantle

n of the

e-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, a

eds 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 d

s 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

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 ther

ore 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 German

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 h

e must make shift the best we can. I can spare one man from t

n 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 t

thout recognition. He w

u, for I was afraid the

you come fro

'and I ran away. I am tired, Cornelis, a

home from Damaraland. You are a German who has lived thirty years

oke to th

we've struck him. He's old, and not very strong in the head, but I'll go bail he

,' said t

wiry as a leopard. A sailor does

eep 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

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

captain, 'to be scrutinized by a policeman, you

my own servants.' I could see that I was becoming rather a figure in the captain's eyes. He

th 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

ncipally through not being allowed to smoke. His companion was an ox-eyed

here. With a spanner and a couple of clear hours I could make th

o. We're on a bigger business than wrecking mun

xtraordinary Sunday-s

see I was angry and did not reflect. They had separated us, and I could see would treat me

e little bleak farms which

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

ired 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

likely enou

m 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

er, 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 busine

mean to say you were quite certain

t 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

er, 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 fr

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 sover

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 t

indow next day. It was

ld stroke,' I

stick of chocolate. I had no overcoat, and it was snowing hard. Further, I could not get down the tree, which had a tr

ll 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 near

as I had told my friends, for no one could dream of an ignorant Dutchman going south away from his kinsfolk.

e to pick me

be plodding on foot. But I was set on getting to the place you spoke of (how do you call

d; 'but go on. How did you get to th

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 P

ant a Polish

pursued?

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

esolved to get on on

l 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 pr

eyond 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

the words seemed to echo in my ears, and long after he had giv

his hand to Gaudian. I had heard something like 'Uhnmantl,' 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

s, I had managed to find out a wonderful amount in a very few days. It only shows wha

ch 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 ri

ians 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 ne

German, Austrian, and Bulgarian, and amid them one stout gentleman in a fur coat and a black felt hat. They watched the

y from Gally-poly we can use these noo consignments for the bigger game. I guess i

lege of that spectacle may s

st tidings of the great evacuation of Cape Helles. What rejoiced me was the sight of Blenkiron, as bland