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"The major's asleep in that dug-out," volunteered Beale of A, pointing to a hole in a bank that allowed at least two feet of air space above Major Bullivant's recumbent form. The major was unshaven; his fair hair was tousled. He had turned up the collar of his British warm. Beale also looked unkempt, but he said he had had three hours' sleep before the barrage started and felt quite fresh.
I looked at Bullivant's shrewd, kind old face and Macgillivray's steady eyes. These men were my friends and wouldn't play with Me. 'All right, I said. 'I'm willing. What's the first step? 'Get out of uniform and forget you ever were a soldier. Change your name. Your old one, Cornelis Brandt, will do, but you'd better spell it "Brand" this time.
But that hour in the Tube station had brought me into the serum, and I saw the affair not as Bullivant's or even Blenkiron's, but as my own. Before I had been itching to get back to the Front; now I wanted to get on to Ivery's trail, though it should take me through the nether pit. Peter was right; fortitude was the thing a man must possess if he would save his soul.
'Well, to make a long story short, I got to Constantinople, and pretty soon found touch with Blenkiron. The rest you know. And now for business. I have been fairly lucky but no more, for I haven't got to the bottom of the thing nor anything like it. But I've solved the first of Harry Bullivant's riddles. I know the meaning of Kasredin. 'Sir Walter was right, as Blenkiron has told us.
Dick, you should not have crossed the Danube. 'That's what I half feared, I said. 'But on the other hand it is obvious that the thing must come east, and sooner rather than later. I take it they can't afford to delay too long before they deliver the goods. If we can stick it out here we must hit the trail ... I've got another bit of evidence. I have solved Harry Bullivant's third puzzle.
A Mission is Proposed I had just finished breakfast and was filling my pipe when I got Bullivant's telegram. It was at Furling, the big country house in Hampshire where I had come to convalesce after Loos, and Sandy, who was in the same case, was hunting for the marmalade. I flung him the flimsy with the blue strip pasted down on it, and he whistled. 'Hullo, Dick, you've got the battalion.
Bullivant's boom works in a universal or socket joint, which cannot get out of gear except by fracture, and which permits the boom to be moved in any direction, whether vertically or fore and aft, close in against the sides.
Not that I haven't picked up a lot of noos, and got some very interesting sidelights on high politics. But the thing I was after wasn't to be found on my beat, for those that knew it weren't going to tell. In that kind of society they don't get drunk and blab after their tenth cocktail. So I guess I've no contribution to make to quieting Sir Walter Bullivant's mind, except that he's dead right.
Sandy's eyes were very bright and I had an audience on wires. 'Did you say that in the tale of Kasredin a woman is the ally of the prophet? 'Yes, said Sandy; 'what of that? 'Only that the same thing is true of Greenmantle. I can give you her name. I fetched a piece of paper and a pencil from Blenkiron's desk and handed it to Sandy. 'Write down Harry Bullivant's third word.
But, while this was no doubt the primary purpose in view, the experiment also served the secondary purpose of determining the result of the explosion upon the net defenses of a ship. Mr. Bullivant's booms and runners, which were found to be scarcely anything the worse from the ordeal of the previous day, were again used.
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