4 Chapter 4 (Adventures of Two Dutchmen on the Loose)

The Germans, as Peter said, are a careful people. A man met us on the

quay at Rotterdam. I was a bit afraid that something might have turned

up in Lisbon to discredit us, and that our little friend might have

warned his pals by telegram. But apparently all was serene.

Peter and I had made our plans pretty carefully on the voyage. We had

talked nothing but Dutch, and had kept up between ourselves the role of

Maritz's men, which Peter said 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 other side

of my mind, which should be busy with the great problem, would get

atrophied, and that I should soon be mentally on a par with the

ordinary backveld desperado.

We had agreed that it would be best to get into Germany at once, and

when the agent on the quay told us of a train at midday we decided to

take it.

I had another fit of cold feet before we got over the frontier. At the

station there was a King's Messenger whom I had seen in France, and a

war correspondent who had been trotting 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

were copies of the English papers for sale, and English cheap editions.

I felt pretty bad about the whole business, and wondered if I should

ever see these homely sights again.

But the mood passed when the train started. It was a clear blowing day,

and as we crawled through the flat pastures of Holland my time was

taken 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 land would carry four sheep a morgen. We were thick in talk

when we reached the frontier station and jolted over a canal bridge

into Germany.

I had expected a big barricade with barbed wire and entrenchments. But

there was nothing to see on the German side but half a dozen sentries

in the field-grey I had hunted at Loos. An under-officer, with the

black-and-gold button of the Landsturm, hoicked us out of the train,

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 skin, and I

had to curse him pretty seriously to make him keep quiet. The men who

did the job were fairly civil, but they were mighty thorough. They took

down a list of all we had in our pockets and bags, and all the details

from the passports the Rotterdam agent had given us.

We were dressing when a man in a lieutenant's uniform came in with a

paper in his hand. He was a fresh-faced lad of about twenty, with

short-sighted spectacled eyes.

"Herr Brandt," he called out.

I nodded.

"And this is Herr Pienaar?" he asked in Dutch.

He saluted. "Gentlemen, I apologize. I am late because of the slowness

of the Herr Commandant's motor-car. Had I been in time you would not

have been required to go through this ceremony. We have been advised of

your coming, and I am instructed to attend you on your journey. The

train for Berlin leaves in half an hour. Pray do me the honour to join

me in a bock."

With a feeling of distinction we stalked out of the ordinary ruck of

passengers and followed the lieutenant to the station restaurant. He

plunged at once into conversation, talking the Dutch of Holland, which

Peter, who 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 Germany could gobble up the French and the Russians whenever she

cared, but she was aiming at getting all the Middle East in her hands

first, so that she could come out conqueror with the practical control

of half the world.

"Your friends the English," he said grinning, "will come last. When we

have starved them and destroyed their commerce with our under-sea boats

we will show them what our navy can do. For a year they have been

wasting their time in brag and politics, and we have been building

great ships—oh, so many! My cousin at Kiel—" and he looked over his

shoulder.

But we never heard about that cousin at Kiel. A short sunburnt man came

in and our friend sprang up and saluted, clicking his heels like a pair

of tongs.

"These are the South African Dutch, Herr Captain," he said.

The new-comer looked us over with bright intelligent eyes, and started

questioning Peter in the taal. It was well that we had taken some pains

with our story, for this man had been years in German South West, and

knew every mile of the borders. Zorn was his name, and both Peter and I

thought we remembered hearing him spoken of.

I am thankful to say that we both showed up pretty well. Peter told his

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

then for a name or to verify some detail. Captain Zorn looked

satisfied.

"You seem the right kind of fellows," he said. "But remember"—and he

bent his brows on us—"we do not understand slimness in this land. If

you are honest you will be rewarded, but if you dare to play a double

game you will be shot like dogs. Your race has produced over many

traitors for my taste."

"I ask no reward," I said gruffly. "We are not Germans or Germany's

slaves. But so long as she fights against England we will fight for

her."

"Bold words," he said; "but you must bow your stiff necks to discipline

first. Discipline has been the weak point of you Boers, and you have

suffered for it. You are no more a nation. In Germany we put discipline

first and last, and therefore we will conquer the world. Off with you

now. Your train starts in three minutes. We will see what von Stumm

will make of you."

That fellow gave me the best "feel" of any German I had yet met. He was

a white man and I could have worked with him. I liked his stiff chin

and steady blue eyes.

My chief recollection of our journey to Berlin was its commonplaceness.

The spectacled lieutenant fell asleep, and for the most part we had the

carriage to ourselves. Now and again a soldier on leave would drop in,

most of them tired men with heavy 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

regimental details, though one chap, who was in better spirits than the

rest, observed that this was the last Christmas of misery, and that

next year he would be holidaying at home with full pockets. The others

assented, but without much conviction.

The winter day was short, and most of the journey was made in the dark.

I could see from the window the lights of little villages, and now and

then the blaze of ironworks and forges. We stopped at a town for

dinner, where 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 a bottle of white wine, cost just three

shillings apiece. The bread, to be sure, was poor, but I can put up

with the absence of bread if I get a juicy fillet of beef and as good

vegetables as you will see in the Savoy.

I was a little afraid of our giving ourselves away in our sleep, but I

need have had no fear, for our escort slumbered like a hog with his

mouth wide open. As we roared through the darkness I kept pinching

myself to make myself feel that I was in the enemy's land on a wild

mission. The rain came on, and 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 horizon. Peter

dropped off early, but I kept awake till midnight, trying to focus

thoughts that persistently strayed. Then I, too, dozed and did not

awake till about five in the morning, when we ran into a great busy

terminus as bright as midday. It was the easiest and most unsuspicious

journey I ever made.

The lieutenant stretched himself and smoothed his rumpled uniform. We

carried our scanty luggage to a _droschke_, for there seemed to be no

porters. Our escort gave the address of some hotel and we rumbled out

into brightly lit empty streets.

"A mighty dorp," said Peter. "Of a truth the Germans are a great

people."

The lieutenant nodded good-humouredly.

"The greatest people on earth," he said, "as their enemies will soon

bear witness."

I would have given a lot for a bath, but I felt that it would be

outside my part, and Peter was not of the washing persuasion. But we

had a very good breakfast of coffee and eggs, and then the lieutenant

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 arrangements, for he

informed us that in the afternoon we would see some fellow whose title

he could not translate into Dutch. I judged he was a great swell, for

his voice became reverential at the mention of him.

He took us for a walk that morning after Peter and I had attended to

our toilets. We were an odd pair of scallywags to look at, but as South

African as a wait-a-bit bush. Both of us had ready-made tweed suits,

grey flannel shirts with flannel collars, and felt hats with broader

brims than they like in Europe. I had strong-nailed brown boots, Peter

a pair of those 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 is combed once in a blue moon. I must

say we made a pretty solid pair. Any South African would have set us

down as a Boer from the back-veld who had bought a suit of clothes in

the nearest store, and his cousin from some one-horse dorp who had been

to school and thought himself the devil of a fellow. We fairly reeked

of the sub-continent, as the papers call it.

It was a fine morning after the rain, and we wandered about in the

streets for a couple of hours. They were busy enough, and the shops

looked rich and bright with their Christmas goods, and one big store

where I went to buy a pocket-knife was packed with customers. One

didn't see very many young men, and most of the women wore mourning.

Uniforms were everywhere, but their 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 found it

depressing—more depressing than London. I don't know how to put it, but

the whole big concern seemed to have no soul in it, to be like a big

factory instead of a city. You won't make a factory look like a house,

though you decorate its front and plant rose-bushes all round it. The

place depressed and yet cheered me. It somehow made the German people

seem smaller.

At three o'clock the lieutenant took us to a plain white building in a

side street with sentries at the door. A young staff officer met us and

made us wait for five minutes in an ante-room. Then we were 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 his brow like a popular

violinist. He was the boss, for the lieutenant saluted him and

announced our names. Then he disappeared, and the man at the table

motioned us to sit down in two chairs before him.

"Herr Brandt and Herr Pienaar?" he asked, looking over his glasses.

But it was the other man that caught my eye. He stood with his back to

the fire leaning his elbows on the mantelpiece. He was a perfect

mountain of a fellow, six and a half feet if he was an inch, with

shoulders on him like a shorthorn bull. He was in uniform and the

black-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, lazy,

smiling face, with a square cleft chin which stuck out beyond the rest.

His brow retreated and the stubby back of his head ran forward to meet

it, while his neck below bulged out over his collar. His head was

exactly the shape of a pear with the sharp end topmost.

He stared at me with his small bright eyes and I stared back. I had

struck something I had been looking for for a long time, and till that

moment I wasn't sure that it existed. Here was the German of

caricature, the real German, the fellow we were up against. He was as

hideous as a hippopotamus, but effective. Every bristle on his odd head

was effective.

The man at the table was speaking. I took him to be a civilian official

of sorts, pretty high up from his surroundings, perhaps an

Under-Secretary. 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 amount to much, being pretty well a repetition of those

Zorn had asked us at the frontier. I answered fluently, for I had all

our lies by heart.

Then the man on the hearthrug broke in. "I'll talk to them,

Excellency," he said in German. "You are too academic for those outland

swine."

He began in the _taal_, with the thick guttural accent that you get in

German South West. "You have heard of me," he said. "I am the Colonel

von Stumm who fought the Hereros."

Peter pricked up his ears. "_Ja_, Baas, you cut off the chief Baviaan's

head and sent it in pickle about the country. I have seen it."

The big man laughed. "You see I am not forgotten," he said to his

friend, and then to us: "So I treat my enemies, and so will Germany

treat hers. You, too, if you fail me by a fraction of an inch." And he

laughed loud again.

There was something horrible in that boisterousness. Peter was watching

him from below his eyelids, as I have seen him watch a lion about to

charge.

He flung himself on a chair, put his elbows on the table, and thrust

his face forward.

"You have come from a damned muddled show. If I had Maritz in my power

I would have him flogged at a wagon's end. Fools and pig-dogs, they had

the game in their hands and they flung it away. We could have raised a

fire that would have burned the English into the sea, and for lack of

fuel they let it die down. Then they try to fan it when the ashes are

cold."

He rolled a paper pellet and flicked it into the air. "That is what I

think of your idiot general," he said, "and of all you Dutch. As slow

as a fat vrouw and as greedy as an aasvogel."

We looked very glum and sullen.

"A pair of dumb dogs," he cried. "A thousand Brandenburgers would have

won in a fortnight. Seitz hadn't much to boast of, mostly clerks and

farmers and half-castes, and no soldier worth the name to lead them,

but it took Botha and Smuts and a dozen generals to hunt him down. But

Maritz!" His scorn came like a gust of wind.

"Maritz did all the fighting there was," said Peter sulkily. "At any

rate he wasn't afraid of the sight of the khaki like your lot."

"Maybe he wasn't," said the giant in a cooing voice; "maybe he had his

reasons for that. You Dutchmen have always a feather-bed to fall on.

You can always turn traitor. Maritz now calls himself Robinson, and has

a pension from his friend Botha."

"That," said Peter, "is a very damned lie."

"I asked for information," said Stumm with a sudden politeness. "But

that is all past and done with. Maritz matters no more than your old

Cronjes and Krugers. The show is over, and you are looking for safety.

For a new master perhaps? 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. "South Africa is coloured

green. Not red for the English, or yellow for the Germans. Some day it

will be yellow, but for a little it will be green—the colour of

neutrals, of nothings, of boys and young ladies and chicken-hearts."

I kept wondering what he was playing at.

Then he fixed his eyes on Peter. "What do you come here for? The game's

up in your own country. What can you offer us Germans? 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. South Africa is counted

out in this war. Botha is a cleverish man and has beaten you

calves'-heads of rebels. Can you deny it?"

Peter couldn't. He was terribly honest in some things, and these were

for certain his opinions.

"No," he said, "that is true, Baas."

"Then what in God's name can you do?" shouted Stumm.

Peter mumbled some foolishness about nobbling Angola for Germany and

starting a revolution among the natives. Stumm flung up his arms and

cursed, and the Under-Secretary laughed.

It was high time for me to chip in. I was beginning to see the kind of

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

had got overlaid by my Boer past. It looked as if he might be useful.

"Let me speak," I said. "My friend is a great hunter, but he fights

better than he talks. He is no politician. You speak truth. South

Africa is a closed door for the present, and the key to it is

elsewhere. Here in Europe, and in the east, and in other parts of

Africa. We have come to help you to find the key."

Stumm was listening. "Go on, my little Boer. It will be a new thing to

hear a _taakhaar_ on world-politics."

"You are fighting," I said, "in East Africa; and soon you may fight in

Egypt. All the east coast north of the Zambesi will be your

battle-ground. The English run about 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 Europe and

on the seas. Therefore, like wise generals, you try to divide them and

have them scattered throughout the globe while you stick at home. That

is your plan?"

"A second Falkenhayn," said Stumm, laughing.

"Well, England will not let East Africa go. She fears for Egypt and she

fears, too, for India. If you press her there she will send armies and

more armies till she is 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 press there, destroy the

railway to the Lakes, burn her capital, pen up every Englishman in

Mombasa island. At this moment it is worth for you a thousand

Damaralands."

The man was really interested and the Under-Secretary, too, pricked up

his ears.

"We can keep our territory," said the former; "but as for pressing, how

the devil are we to press? The accursed English hold the sea. We cannot

ship men or guns there. South are the Portuguese and west the Belgians.

You cannot move a mass without a lever."

"The lever is there, ready for you," I said.

"Then for God's sake show it me," he cried.

I looked at the door to see that it was shut, as if what I had to say

was very secret.

"You need men, and the men are waiting. They are black, but they are

the stuff of warriors. All round your borders you have the remains of

great fighting 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 regiments there, and so do you. But to get

recruits is not enough. You must set whole nations moving, as the Zulu

under Tchaka flowed over South Africa."

"It cannot be done," said the Under-Secretary.

"It can be done," I said quietly. "We two are here to do it."

This kind of talk was jolly difficult for me, chiefly because of

Stumm's asides in German to the official. I had, above all things, to

get the credit of knowing no German, and, if you 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 next. I had to be always on my guard, and yet it was up

to me to be very persuasive and convince these fellows that I would be

useful. Somehow or other I had to get into their confidence.

"I have been for years up and down in Africa—Uganda and the Congo and

the Upper Nile. I know the ways of the Kaffir as no Englishman does. We

Afrikanders see into the black man's heart, and 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 and puts away his gods, but he worships

them all the time in his soul. We must get his gods on our side, and

then he will move mountains. We must do as John Laputa did with Sheba's

necklace."

"That's all in the air," said Stumm, but he did not laugh.

"It is sober common sense," I said. "But you must begin at the right

end. First find the race that fears its priests. It is waiting for

you—the Mussulmans of Somaliland and the Abyssinian border and the Blue

and White Nile. 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 will lick up the pagans of the west and

south. This is the way of Africa. How many thousands, think you, were

in the Mahdi's army who never heard of the Prophet till they saw the

black flags of the Emirs going into battle?"

Stumm was smiling. He turned his face to the official and spoke with

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

the man for Hilda." The other pursed his lips and looked a little

scared.

Stumm rang a bell and the lieutenant came in and clicked his heels. He

nodded towards Peter. "Take this man away with you. We have done with

him. The other fellow will follow presently."

Peter went out with a puzzled face and Stumm turned to me.

"You are a dreamer, Brandt," he said. "But I do not reject you on that

account. Dreams sometimes come true, when an army follows the

visionary. But who is going to kindle the flame?"

"You," I said.

"What the devil do you mean?" he asked.

"That is your part. You are the cleverest people in the world. You have

already half the Mussulman lands in your power. It is for you to show

us how to kindle a holy war, for clearly you have the secret of it.

Never fear but we will carry out your order."

"We have no secret," he said shortly, and glanced at the official, who

stared out of the window.

I dropped my jaw and looked the picture of disappointment. "I do not

believe you," I said slowly. "You play a game with me. I have not come

six thousand miles to be made a fool of."

"Discipline, by God," Stumm cried. "This is none of your ragged

commandos." In two strides he was above me and had lifted me out of 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. Then very slowly

he shook me so that my teeth seemed loosened and my head swam. He let

me go and I dropped limply back in the chair.

"Now, go! _Futsack!_ And remember that I am your master. I, Ulric von

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

use for you, my friend, when you fear me as you never feared your God."

As I walked dizzily away the big man was smiling in his horrible way,

and that little official was blinking and smiling too. I had struck a

dashed queer 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 nearly choked with anger. But I thanked heaven I

had shown no temper, for I remembered my mission. Luck seemed to have

brought me into useful company.

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