Greeenmantle (Kara Gubek)

 

     Kara Gubek was the point of interest.  It stood on a rib of land between two peaks, which from the contour lines rose very steep.   So long as it was held it was clear that no invader could move down the Euphrates glen.  Stumm had appended a note to the peaks—“not fortified”; and about two miles to the north-east there was a red cross and the name “Prjevalsky.”  I assumed that to be the farthest point yet reached by the right wing of the Russian attack.

     Then I turned to the paper from which Stumm had copied the jottings on to his map.  It was typewritten, and consisted of notes on different points.  One was headed “Kara Gubek” and read: “No time to fortify adjacent peaks.  Difficult for enemy to get batteries there, but not impossible. This is the real point of danger, for if Prjevalsky wins the peaks Kara Gubek and Tafta must fall, and enemy will be on the left rear of Deve Boyun main position.”

 

     I was soldier enough to see the tremendous importance of this note.  On Kara Gubek depended the defence of Erzerum, and it was a broken reed if one knew where the weakness lay.  Yet, searching the map again, I could not believe that any mortal commander would see any chance in the adjacent peaks, even if he thought them unfortified.  That was information confined to the Turkish and German staffs.

NOTE:  


I haven't read Greenmantle in a long time, but I remember first turning its pages under Los Cabos, Baja Sur, sun with hawks wheeling overhead and whales breaking the Sea of Cortez surface and spouting very close offshore.


The paragraphs quoted above are atmospheric, but don’t convey the breadth, sweep, and moral depth and focus of John Buchan's trans-Caucasian World War I espionage-adventure novel.


I'm not the world's biggest Steven Spielberg fan, but I can't understand why he hasn't yet attacked Greenmantle.  It is tailor-made for him. I think he could make a commanding and moving success of it and The Three Hostages also (since sequel-itis seems to be a disease with no known cure).  He could transfer Mr Standfast to the care of Peter Jackson.

 

 John Buchan (1875-1940)