The Riddle of the Sands
tastes and principles, had induced him to abandon his life in the
islands and undertake the voyage at all. But on that point he was
immovably reticent, and all I could conclude was that the strange
cross-current connected with Dollmann’s daughter had given him cruel
pain and had clouded his judgement to distraction, but that he now was
prepared to forget or ignore it, and steer a settled course.
The facts I elicited raised several important questions. Was it not
known by this time that he and his yacht had survived? Davies was
convinced that it was not. “He may have waited at Cuxhaven, or inquired
at the lock at Brunsbüttel,” he said. “But there was no need, for I
tell you the thing was a certainty. If I had struck and _stuck_ on that
outer bank, as it was a hundred to one I should do, the yacht would
have broken up in three minutes. Bartels would never have seen me, and
couldn’t have got to me if he had. No one would have seen me. And
nothing whatever has happened since to show that they know I’m alive.”
“They,” I suggested. “Who are ‘they’? Who are our adversaries?” If
Dollmann were an accredited agent of the German Admiralty—— But, no, it
was incredible that the murder of a young Englishman should be connived
at in modern days by a friendly and civilised government! Yet, if he
were not such an agent, the whole theory fell to the ground.
“I believe,” said Davies, “that Dollmann did it off his own bat, and
beyond that I can’t see. And I don’t know that it matters at present.
Alive or dead we’re doing nothing wrong, and have nothing to be ashamed
of.”
“I think it matters a good deal,” I objected. “Who will be interested
in our resurrection, and how are we to go to work, openly or secretly?
I suppose we shall keep out of the way as much as we can?”
“As for keeping out of the way,” said Davies, jerkily, as he peered to
windward under the foresail, “we _must_ pass the ship canal; that’s a
public highway, where anyone can see you. After that there won’t be
much difficulty. Wait till you see the place!” He gave a low, contented
laugh, which would have frozen my marrow yesterday. “By the way, that
reminds me,” he added; “we must stop at Kiel for the inside of a day
and lay in a lot of stores. We want to be independent of the shore.” I
said nothing. Independence of the shore in a seven-tonner in October!
What an end to aim at!
About nine o’clock we weathered the point, entered Kiel Fiord, and
began a dead beat to windward of seven miles to the head of it where
Kiel lies. Hitherto, save for the latent qualms concerning my total
helplessness if anything happened to Davies, interest and excitement
had upheld me well. My alarms only began when I thought them nearly
over. Davies had frequently urged me to turn in and sleep, and I went
so far as to go below and coil myself up on the lee sofa with my pencil
and diary. Suddenly there was a flapping and rattling on deck, and I
began to slide on to the floor. “What’s happened?” I cried, in a panic,
for there was Davies stooping in at the cabin door.
“Nothing,” he said, chafing his hands for warmth; “I’m only going
about. Hand me the glasses, will you? There’s a steamer ahead. I say,
if you really don’t want to turn in, you might make some soup. Just
let’s look at the chart.” He studied it with maddening deliberation,
while I wondered how near the steamer was, and what the yacht was doing
meanwhile.
“I suppose it’s not really necessary for anyone to be at the helm?” I
remarked.
“Oh, she’s all right for a minute,” he said, without looking up.
“Two—one and a half—one—lights in line sou’-west by west—got a match?”
He expended two, and tumbled upstairs again.
“You don’t want me, do you?” I shouted after him.
“No, but come up when you’ve put the kettle on. It’s a pretty beat up
the fiord. Lovely breeze.”
His legs disappeared. A sort of buoyant fatalism possessed me as I
finished my notes and pored over the stove. It upheld me, too, when I
went on deck and watched the “pretty beat”, whose prettiness was mainly
due to the crowd of fog-bound shipping—steamers, smacks, and
sailing-vessels—now once more on the move in the confined fairway of
the fiord, their baleful eyes of red, green, or yellow, opening and
shutting, brightening and fading; while shore-lights and anchor-lights
added to my bewilderment, and a throbbing of screws filled the air like
the distant roar of London streets. In fact, every time we spun round
for our dart across the fiord I felt like a rustic matron gathering her
skirts for the transit of the Strand on a busy night. Davies, however,
was the street arab who zigzags under the horses’ feet unscathed; and
all the time he discoursed placidly on the simplicity and safety of
night-sailing if only you are careful, obeying rules, and burnt good
lights. As we were nearing the hot glow in the sky that denoted Kiel we
passed a huge scintillating bulk moored in mid-stream. “Warships,” he
murmured, ecstatically.
At one o’clock we anchored off the town.
CHAPTER X.
His Chance
“I say, Davies,” I said, “how long do you think this trip will last?
I’ve only got a month’s leave.”
We were standing at slanting desks in the Kiel post-office, Davies
scratching diligently at his letter-card, and I staring feebly at mine.
“By Jove!” said Davies, with a start of dismay; “that’s only three
weeks more; I never thought of that. You couldn’t manage to get an
extension, could you?”
“I can write to the chief,” I admitted; “but where’s the answer to come
to? We’re better without an address, I suppose.”
“There’s Cuxhaven,” reflected Davies; “but that’s too near, and
there’s—but we don’t want to be tied down to landing anywhere. I tell
you what: say ‘Post Office, Norderney’, just your name, not the
yacht’s. We _may_ get there and be able to call for letters.” The
casual character of our adventure never struck me more strongly than
then.
“Is that what _you’re_ doing?” I asked.
“Oh, I shan’t be having important letters like you.”
“But what are you saying?”
“Oh, just that we’re having a splendid cruise, and are on our way
home.”
The notion tickled me, and I said the same in my home letter, adding
that we were looking for a friend of Davies’s who would be able to show
us some sport. I wrote a line, too, to my chief (unaware of the gravity
of the step I was taking) saying it was possible that I might have to
apply for longer leave, as I had important business to transact in
Germany, and asking him kindly to write to the same address. Then we
shouldered our parcels and resumed our business.
Two full dinghy-loads of stores we ferried to the _Dulcibella_, chief
among which were two immense cans of petroleum, constituting our
reserves of heat and light, and a sack of flour. There were spare ropes
and blocks, too; German charts of excellent quality; cigars and many
weird brands of sausage and tinned meats, besides a miscellany of
oddments, some of which only served in the end to slake my companion’s
craving for jettison. Clothes were my own chief care, for, freely as I
had purged it at Flensburg, my wardrobe was still very unsuitable, and
I had already irretrievably damaged two faultless pairs of white
flannels. (“We shall be able to throw them overboard,” said Davies,
hopefully.) So I bought a great pair of seaboots of the country,
felt-lined and wooden-soled, and both of us got a number of rough
woollen garments (as worn by the local fishermen), breeches, jerseys,
helmets, gloves; all of a colour chosen to harmonise with paraffin
stains and anchor mud.
The same evening we were taking our last look at the Baltic, sailing
past warships and groups of idle yachts battened down for their
winter’s sleep; while the noble shores of the fiord, with its villas
embowered in copper foliage, grew dark and dim above us.
We rounded the last headland, steered for a galaxy of coloured lights,
tumbled down our sails, and came to under the colossal gates of the
Holtenau lock. That these would open to such an infinitesimal suppliant
seemed inconceivable. But open they did, with ponderous majesty, and
our tiny hull was lost in the womb of a lock designed to float the
largest battleships. I thought of Boulter’s on a hot August Sunday, and
wondered if I really was the same peevish dandy who had jostled and
sweltered there with the noisy cockney throng a month ago. There was a
blaze of electricity overhead, but utter silence till a solitary
cloaked figure hailed us and called for the captain. Davies ran up a
ladder, disappeared with the cloaked figure, and returned crumpling a
paper into his pocket. It lies before me now, and sets forth, under the
stamp of the Königliches Zollamt, that, in consideration of the sum of
ten marks for dues and four for tonnage, an imperial tug would tow the
vessel _Dulcibella_ (master A. H. Davies) through the Kaiser Wilhelm
canal from Holtenau to Brunsbüttel. Magnificent condescension! I blush
when I look at this yellow document and remember the stately courtesy
of the great lock-gates; for the sleepy officials of the Königliches
Zollamt little knew what an insidious little viper they were admitting
into the imperial bosom at the light toll of fourteen shillings.
“Seems cheap,” said Davies, joining me, “doesn’t it? They’ve a regular
tariff on tonnage, same for yachts as for liners. We start at four
to-morrow with a lot of other boats. I wonder if Bartels is here.”
The same silence reigned, but invisible forces were at work. The inner
gates opened and we prised ourselves through into a capacious basin,
where lay moored side by side a flotilla of sailing vessels of various
sizes. Having made fast alongside a vacant space of quay, we had our
dinner, and then strolled out with cigars to look for the _Johannes_.
We found her wedged among a stack of galliots, and her skipper sitting
primly below before a blazing stove, reading his Bible through
spectacles. He produced a bottle of schnapps and some very small and
hard pears, while Davies twitted him mercilessly about his false
predictions.
“The sky was not good,” was all he said, beaming indulgently at his
incorrigible young friend.
Before parting for the night it was arranged that next morning we
should lash alongside the _Johannes_ when the flotilla was marshalled
for the tow through the canal.
“Karl shall steer for us both,” he said, “and we will stay warm in the
cabin.”
The scheme was carried out, not without much confusion and loss of
paint, in the small hours of a dark and drizzling morning. Boisterous
little tugs sorted us into parties, and half lost under the massive
bulwarks of the _Johannes_ we were carried off into a black inane. If
any doubt remained as to the significance of our change of
cruising-grounds, dawn dispelled it. View there was none from the deck
of the _Dulcibella_; it was only by standing on the mainboom that you
could see over the embankments to the vast plain of Holstein, grey and
monotonous under a pall of mist. The soft scenery of the Schleswig
coast was a baseless dream of the past, and a cold penetrating rain
added the last touch of dramatic completeness to the staging of the new
act.
For two days we travelled slowly up the mighty waterway that is the
strategic link between the two seas of Germany. Broad and straight,
massively embanked, lit by electricity at night till it is lighter than
many a great London street; traversed by great war vessels, rich
merchantmen, and humble coasters alike, it is a symbol of the new and
mighty force which, controlled by the genius of statesmen and
engineers, is thrusting the empire irresistibly forward to the goal of
maritime greatness.
“Isn’t it splendid?” said Davies. “He’s a fine fellow, that emperor.”
Karl was the shock-headed, stout-limbed boy of about sixteen, who