I fancy I was rather a success at that dinner. For one thing I could speak German, and so had a pull on Blenkiron. For another I was in a good temper, and really enjoyed putting my back into my part. They talked very high-flown stuff about what they had done and were going to do, and Enver was great on Gallipoli. I remember he said that he could have destroyed the whole British Army if it hadn’t been for somebody’s cold feet—at which Moellendorff looked daggers. They were so bitter about Britain and all her works that I gathered they were getting pretty panicky, and that made me as jolly as a sandboy. I’m afraid I was not free from bitterness myself on that subject. I said things about my own country that I sometimes wake in the night and sweat to think of.
Gaudian got on to the use of water power in war, and that gave me a chance.
“In my country,” I said, “when we want to get rid of a mountain we wash it away. There’s nothing on earth that will stand against water. Now, speaking with all respect, gentlemen, and as an absolute novice in the military art, I sometimes ask why this God-given weapon isn’t more used in the present war. I haven’t been to any of the fronts, but I’ve studied them some from maps and the newspapers. Take your German position in Flanders, where you’ve got the high ground. If I were a British general I reckon I would very soon make it no sort of position.”
Moellendorff asked, “How?”
“Why, I’d wash it away. Wash away the fourteen feet of soil down to the stone. There’s a heap of coalpits behind the British front where they could generate power, and I judge there’s ample water supply from the rivers and canals. I’d guarantee to wash you away in twenty-four hours—yes, in spite of all your big guns. It beats me why the British haven’t got on to this notion. They used to have some bright engineers.”
Enver was on the point like a knife, far quicker than Gaudian. He cross-examined me in a way that showed he knew how to approach a technical subject, though he mightn’t have much technical knowledge. He was just giving me a sketch of the flooding in Mesopotamia when an aide-de-camp brought in a chit which fetched him to his feet.
“I have gossiped long enough,” he said. “My kind host, I must leave you. Gentlemen all, my apologies and farewells.”
Before he left he asked my name and wrote it down. “This is an unhealthy city for strangers, Mr Hanau,” he said in very good English. “I have some small power of protecting a friend, and what I have is at your disposal.” This with the condescension of a king promising his favour to a subject.
The little fellow amused me tremendously, and rather impressed me too. I said so to Gaudian after he had left, but that decent soul didn’t agree.
“I do not love him,” he said. “We are allies—yes; but friends—no. He is no true son of Islam, which is a noble faith and despises liars and boasters and betrayers of their salt.”