“Not a doubt of it, my dear fellow. You can take that from me. The Governor-General is holding the country with the merest handful of soldiers, and there are—annoyances.”
“Serious ones?”
“Very. Bartels, for instance.”
“Bartels?” Gerard repeated. “I never heard of him.”
Far away from the main shock of the battles, many curious and romantic episodes were occurring, many strange epics of prowess and adventure which will never find a historian. Bartels was the hero of one, and here in Baumann’s clipped phrases are the bare bones of his exploit.
“He was a non-commissioned officer in the German army . . . enlisted on his discharge in our Foreign Legion—was interned in August, 1914, and got away to Melilla.”
“In the Spanish zone, on the coast. Yes,” said Gerard.
“He was safe there and on the edge of the Riff country. He got into touch with a more than usually turbulent chieftain of those parts, Abd-el-Malek, and also with a German official in Spain. From the German officials Bartels received by obscure routes fifteen thousand pounds a month in solid cash, minus, of course, a certain attrition which the sum suffers on the way.”
“Of course,” said Gerard.
“With the fifteen thousand—call it twelve—with the twelve thousand pounds a month actually received, and Abd-el-Malek’s help, Bartels has built himself a walled camp up in the hills close to the edge of the French zone, where he maintains two thousand riflemen well paid and well armed.”