Here was I--a brigadier and
still under forty, and with another year of the war there was no saying
where I might end. I had started out without any ambition, only a great
wish to see the business finished. But now I had acquired a
professional interest in the thing, I had a nailing good brigade, and I
had got the hang of our new kind of war as well as any fellow from
Sandhurst and Camberley. They were asking me to scrap all I had learned
and start again in a new job. I had to agree, for discipline's
discipline, but I could have knocked their heads together in my
vexation.

What was worse they wouldn't, or couldn't, tell me anything about what
they wanted me for. It was the old game of running me in blinkers. They
asked me to take it on trust and put myself unreservedly in their
hands. I would get my instructions later, they said.

I asked if it was important.

Bullivant narrowed his eyes. 'If it weren't, do you suppose we could
have wrung an active brigadier out of the War Office? As it was, it was
like drawing teeth.'

'Is it risky?' was my next question.

'In the long run--damnably,' was the answer.

'And you can't tell me anything more?'

'Nothing as yet. You'll get your instructions soon enough. You know
both of us, Hannay, and you know we wouldn't waste the time of a good
man on folly. We are going to ask you for something which will make a
big call on your patriotism. It will be a difficult and arduous task,
and it may be a very grim one before you get to the end of it, but we
believe you can do it, and that no one else can ... You know us pretty
well. Will you let us judge for you?'

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. Remember that you are an engineer just back from
South Africa, and that you don't care a rush about the war. You can't
understand what all the fools are fighting about, and you think we
might have peace at once by a little friendly business talk. You
needn't be pro-German--if you like you can be rather severe on the Hun.
But you must be in deadly earnest about a speedy peace.'

I expect the corners of my mouth fell, for Bullivant burst out laughing.

'Hang it all, man, it's