登陆注册
25537700000003

第3章

'It is a great game, and you are the man for it, no doubt. But there are others who can play it, for soldiering today asks for the average rather than the exception in human nature. It is like a big machine where the parts are standardized. You are fighting, not because you are short of a job, but because you want to help England. How if you could help her better than by commanding a battalion - or a brigade - or, if it comes to that, a division? How if there is a thing which you alone can do? Not some _embusque business in an office, but a thing compared to which your fight at Loos was a Sunday-school picnic. You are not afraid of danger? Well, in this job you would not be fighting with an army around you, but alone.

You are fond of tackling difficulties? Well, I can give you a task which will try all your powers. Have you anything to say?'

My heart was beginning to thump uncomfortably. Sir Walter was not the man to pitch a case too high.

'I am a soldier,' I said, 'and under orders.'

'True; but what I am about to propose does not come by any conceivable stretch within the scope of a soldier's duties. I shall perfectly understand if you decline. You will be acting as I should act myself - as any sane man would. I would not press you for worlds. If you wish it, I will not even make the proposal, but let you go here and now, and wish you good luck with your battalion.

I do not wish to perplex a good soldier with impossible decisions.'

This piqued me and put me on my mettle.

'I am not going to run away before the guns fire. Let me hear what you propose.'

Sir Walter crossed to a cabinet, unlocked it with a key from his chain, and took a piece of paper from a drawer. It looked like an ordinary half-sheet of note-paper.

'I take it,' he said, that your travels have not extended to the East.'

'No,' I said, 'barring a shooting trip in East Africa.'

'Have you by any chance been following the present campaign there?'

'I've read the newspapers pretty regularly since I went to hospital.

I've got some pals in the Mesopotamia show, and of course I'm keen to know what is going to happen at Gallipoli and Salonika. Igather that Egypt is pretty safe.'

'If you will give me your attention for ten minutes I will supplement your newspaper reading.'

Sir Walter lay back in an arm-chair and spoke to the ceiling. It was the best story, the clearest and the fullest, I had ever got of any bit of the war. He told me just how and why and when Turkey had left the rails. I heard about her grievances over our seizure of her ironclads, of the mischief the coming of the _Goeben had wrought, of Enver and his precious Committee and the way they had got a cinch on the old Turk. When he had spoken for a bit, he began to question me.

'You are an intelligent fellow, and you will ask how a Polish adventurer, meaning Enver, and a collection of Jews and gipsies should have got control of a proud race. The ordinary man will tell you that it was German organization backed up with German money and German arms. You will inquire again how, since Turkey is primarily a religious power, Islam has played so small a part in it all. The Sheikh-ul-Islam is neglected, and though the Kaiser proclaims a Holy War and calls himself Hadji Mohammed Guilliamo, and says the Hohenzollerns are descended from the Prophet, that seems to have fallen pretty flat. The ordinary man again will answer that Islam in Turkey is becoming a back number, and that Krupp guns are the new gods. Yet - I don't know. I do not quite believe in Islam becoming a back number.'

'Look at it in another way,' he went on. 'if it were Enver and Germany alone dragging Turkey into a European war for purposes that no Turk cared a rush about, we might expect to find the regular army obedient, and Constantinople. But in the provinces, where Islam is strong, there would be trouble. Many of us counted on that. But we have been disappointed. The Syrian army is as fanatical as the hordes of the Mahdi. The Senussi have taken a hand in the game. The Persian Moslems are threatening trouble. There is a dry wind blowing through the East, and the parched grasses wait the spark. And that wind is blowing towards the Indian border.

Whence comes that wind, think you?'

Sir Walter had lowered his voice and was speaking very slow and distinct. I could hear the rain dripping from the eaves of the window, and far off the hoot of taxis in Whitehall.

'Have you an explanation, Hannay?' he asked again.

'It looks as if Islam had a bigger hand in the thing than we thought,' I said. 'I fancy religion is the only thing to knit up such a scattered empire.'

'You are right,' he said. 'You must be right. We have laughed at the Holy War, the jehad that old Von der Goltz prophesied. But Ibelieve that stupid old man with the big spectacles was right. There is a jehad preparing. The question is, How?'

'I'm hanged if I know,' I said; 'but I'll bet it won't be done by a pack of stout German officers in _pickelhaubes. I fancy you can't manufacture Holy Wars out of Krupp guns alone and a few staff officers and a battle cruiser with her boilers burst.'

'Agreed. They are not fools, however much we try to persuade ourselves of the contrary. But supposing they had got some tremendous sacred sanction - some holy thing, some book or gospel or some new prophet from the desert, something which would cast over the whole ugly mechanism of German war the glamour of the old torrential raids which crumpled the Byzantine Empire and shook the walls of Vienna? Islam is a fighting creed, and the mullah still stands in the pulpit with the Koran in one hand and a drawn sword in the other. Supposing there is some Ark of the Covenant which will madden the remotest Moslem peasant with dreams of Paradise?

What then, my friend?'

'Then there will be hell let loose in those parts pretty soon.'

'Hell which may spread. Beyond Persia, remember, lies India.'

'You keep to suppositions. How much do you know?' I asked.

同类推荐
热门推荐
  • 龙翔天的传奇

    龙翔天的传奇

    林天翔,一个普通的高中生,却有着非一般的金融眼光,喜欢低调想过简单生活的他,却掩盖不住自己的光芒。身世被发现后,生活突变,面对这种身份的转化他将如何选择?面对世家之争,商场风云,看他如何突破种种困难逐步成长,最终成为一个传奇……
  • 捕鱼者说

    捕鱼者说

    《捕鱼者说》收录了《终于能管你一回》、《心境》、《失眠》、《张山的相好》、《后妈》、《女人》、《捕鱼者说》、《福婶的心情》等近百篇微型小说作品。
  • TFBOYS为他默默鼓掌

    TFBOYS为他默默鼓掌

    她们,全国前三富他们,万人瞩目的明星到底是有情人终成眷属还是擦肩而过他们与她们究竟怎样爱一个人,就要为他默默鼓掌和呐喊
  • 2012级应届毕业生职场奋斗

    2012级应届毕业生职场奋斗

    在学士光环也越来越微弱的情形下,孤身在陌生城中奋斗,此件滋味,非言语所能表达
  • 黄河北去

    黄河北去

    本书内容包括改革开放与经济建设、民主法制建设、精神文明建设、党的建设等,是作者有关讲话、文章的汇编。
  • 此生与子偕老

    此生与子偕老

    当两人年轻时不小心走散,十年后重逢,是否还有勇气问候?当年熟悉的街头,想起曾经的温柔,是否还能找到拥抱的理由?十年匆匆一瞥,是否还记得当初曾经许下与子偕老的约定?
  • 米洛

    米洛

    缘生,情深缘灭,痛断肠米洛本是另一个世界的苗清风楼兰破颠沛流离身不由己惟大任千军万马走征程看红尘谁人看破谁人懂谁人怜悯谁人惜美人玉损权谋相争黄沙扬起尘逝去江河不变英雄心谁人胜谁人败到最后只有孤寂一人身
  • 醇厚香浓的地道东北菜

    醇厚香浓的地道东北菜

    搜狐博客访问量超过1000000,崔怡用真挚的心为你呈现独具匠心的地道东北菜,红红火火的味道酣畅淋漓的体验。跟热爱美食的她学做最正宗、最地道、最经典的东北名菜,崔怡倾情传授经典东北家常菜烹调技巧。健康、美味、保健……东北菜中最经典的传统菜式,给你“原汁原味”的大师级口感。
  • 霸爱:首席的私宠宝贝

    霸爱:首席的私宠宝贝

    做我的女人,你只会更好,没有人再敢伤害你分毫!她原本是想要去国外散心,却荒唐一夜,醒来之时躺在了他的床上。清晨她惊慌失措,逃的屁滚尿流。名门千金一夜之间变得一无所有,心爱的男友成了别人的未婚夫。再次见面,她像是一个玩物,被阴谋硬塞到了他的怀里。他邪魅的扬起嘴角,欣然接受。本是萍水相逢,一场寻欢作乐的游戏,没想到换来的却是围绕自己的阴谋逐渐化解,无限的宠爱!
  • 粥样年华

    粥样年华

    这将会是一场不怎么轻松的阅读体验,其实我写的时候也是够累,不过我还是坚持下来了。一场梦,到底该不该记录下来,这似乎是一个罗生门的话题,不好好在还有一个说法,叫做庄生梦蝶。你怎么知道梦里发生的事情就是假的,而现实中发生的事情就是真是的呢!