‘You are fighting,’ I said, ‘in East Africa; and soon you may fight in Egypt. All the east coast north of the Zambezi 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, Ulrich 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.
CHAPTER 5
FURTHER ADVENTURES OF THE SAME
Next morning there was a touch of frost and a nip in the air which stirred my blood and put me in buoyant spirits. I forgot my precarious position and the long road I had still to travel. I came down to breakfast in great form, to find Peter’s even temper badly ruffled. He had remembered Stumm in the night and disliked the memory; this he muttered to me as we rubbed shoulders at the dining-room door. Peter and I got no opportunity for private talk. The lieutenant was with us all the time, and at night we were locked in our rooms. Peter discovered this through trying to get out to find matches, for he had the bad habit of smoking in bed.
Our guide started on the telephone, and announced that we were to be taken to see a prisoners’ camp. In the afternoon I was to go somewhere with Stumm, but the morning was for sight-seeing. ‘You will see,’ he told us, ‘how merciful is a great people. You will also see some of the hated English in our power. That will delight you. They are the forerunners of all their nation.’
We drove in a taxi through the suburbs and then over a stretch of flat market-garden-like country to a low rise of wooded hills. After an hour’s ride we entered the gate of what looked like a big reformatory or hospital. I believe it had been a home for destitute children. There were sentries at the gate and massive concentric circles of barbed wire through which we passed under an arch that was let down like a portcullis at nightfall. The lieutenant showed his permit, and we ran the car into a brick-paved yard and marched through a lot