The Riddle of the Sands
But oil and water were running low, and the time had come for us to be
forced to land and renew our stock.
CHAPTER XIV.
The First Night in the Islands
A low line of sandhills, pink and fawn in the setting sun, at one end
of them a little white village huddled round the base of a massive
four-square lighthouse—such was Wangeroog, the easternmost of the
Frisian Islands, as I saw it on the evening of October 15. We had
decided to make it our first landing-place; and since it possesses no
harbour, and is hedged by a mile of sand at low water, we had run in on
the rising tide till the yacht grounded, in order to save ourselves as
much labour as possible in the carriage to and fro of the heavy
water-breakers and oil-cans which we had to replenish. In faint outline
three miles to the south of us was the flat plain of Friesland, broken
only by some trees, a windmill or two, and a church spire. Between, the
shallow expanse of sea was already beginning to shrink away into
lagoons, chief among which was the narrow passage by which we had
approached from the east. This continued its course west, directly
parallel to the island, and in it, at a distance of half a mile from
us, three galliots lay at anchor.
Before supper was over the yacht was high and dry, and when we had
eaten, Davies loaded himself with cans and breakers. I was for taking
my share, but he induced me to stay aboard; for I was dead tired after
an unusually long and trying day, which had begun at 2 a.m., when,
using a precious instalment of east wind, we had started on a complete
passage of the sands from the Elbe to the Jade. It was a barely
possible feat for a boat of our low speed to perform in only two tides;
and though we just succeeded, it was only by dint of tireless vigilance
and severe physical strain.
“Lay out the anchor when you’ve had a smoke,” said Davies, “and keep an
eye on the riding-light; it’s my only guide back.”
He lowered himself, and I heard the scrunch of his sea-boots as he
disappeared in the darkness. It was a fine starry night, with a touch
of frost in the air. I lit a cigar, and stretched myself on a sofa
close to the glow of the stove. The cigar soon languished and dropped,
and I dozed uneasily, for the riding-light was on my mind. I got up
once and squinted at it through the half-raised skylight, saw it
burning steadily, and lay down again. The cabin lamp wanted oil and was
dying down to a red-hot wick, but I was too drowsy to attend to it, and
it went out. I lit my cigar stump again, and tried to keep awake by
thinking. It was the first time I and Davies had been separated for so
long; yet so used had we grown to freedom from interference that this
would not have disturbed me in the least were it not for a sudden
presentiment that on this first night of the second stage of our
labours something would happen. All at once I heard a sound outside, a
splashing footstep as of a man stepping in a puddle. I was wide awake
in an instant, but never thought of shouting “Is that you, Davies?” for
I knew in a flash that it was not he. It was the slip of a stealthy
man. Presently I heard another footstep—the pad of a boot on the
sand—this time close to my ear, just outside the hull; then some more,
fainter and farther aft. I gently rose and peered aft through the
skylight. A glimmer of light, reflected from below, was wavering over
the mizzen-mast and bumpkin; it had nothing to do with the
riding-light, which hung on the forestay. My prowler, I understood, had
struck a match and was reading the name on the stern. How much farther
would his curiosity carry him? The match went out, and footsteps were
audible again. Then a strong, guttural voice called in German, “Yacht
ahoy!” I kept silence. “Yacht ahoy!” a little louder this time. A
pause, and then a vibration of the hull as boots scraped on it and
hands grasped the gunwale. My visitor was on deck. I bobbed down, sat
on the sofa, and I heard him moving along the deck, quickly and
confidently, first forward to the bows, where he stopped, then back to
the companion amidships. Inside the cabin it was pitch dark, but I
heard his boots on the ladder, feeling for the steps. In another moment
he would be in the doorway lighting his second match. Surely it was
darker than before? There had been a little glow from the riding-lamp
reflected on to the skylight, but it had disappeared. I looked up,
realised, and made a fool of myself. In a few seconds more I should
have seen my visitor face to face, perhaps had an interview: but I was
new to this sort of work and lost my head. All I thought of was
Davies’s last words, and saw him astray on the sands, with no light to
guide him back, the tide rising, and a heavy load. I started up
involuntarily, bumped against the table, and set the stove jingling. A
long step and a grab at the ladder, but just too late! I grasped
something damp and greasy, there was tugging and hard breathing, and I
was left clasping a big sea-boot, whose owner I heard jump on to the
sand and run. I scrambled out, vaulted overboard, and followed blindly
by the sound. He had doubled round the bows of the yacht, and I did the
same, ducked under the bowsprit, forgetting the bobstay, and fell
violently on my head, with all the wind knocked out of me by a wire
rope and block whose strength and bulk was one of the glories of the
_Dulcibella_. I struggled on as soon as I got some breath, but my
invisible quarry was far ahead. I pulled off my heavy boots, carried
them, and ran in my stockings, promptly cutting my foot on some
cockle-shells. Pursuit was hopeless, and a final stumble over a bit of
driftwood sent me sprawling with agony in my toes.
Limping back, I decided that I had made a very poor beginning as an
active adventurer. I had gained nothing, and lost a great deal of
breath and skin, and did not even know for certain where I was. The
yacht’s light was extinguished, and, even with Wangeroog Lighthouse to
guide me, I found it no easy matter to find her. She had no anchor out,
if the tide rose. And how was Davies to find her? After much feeble
circling I took to lying flat at intervals in the hopes of seeing her
silhouetted against the starry sky. This plan succeeded at last, and
with relief and humility I boarded her, relit the riding-light, and
carried off the kedge anchor. The strange boot lay at the foot of the
ladder, but it told no tales when I examined it. It was eleven o’clock,
past low water. Davies was cutting it fine if he was to get aboard
without the dinghy’s help. But eventually he reappeared in the most
prosaic way, exhausted with his heavy load, but full of talk about his
visit ashore. He began while we were still on deck.
“Look here, we ought to have settled more about what we’re to say when
we’re asked questions. I chose a quiet-looking shop, but it turned out
to be a sort of inn, where they were drinking pink gin—all very
friendly, as usual, and I found myself under a fire of questions. I
said we were on our way back to England. There was the usual rot about
the smallness of the boat, etc. It struck me that we should want some
other pretence for going so slow and stopping to explore, so I had to
bring in the ducks, though goodness knows we don’t want to waste time
over _them._ The subject wasn’t quite a success. They said it was too
early—jealous, I suppose; but then two fellows spoke up, and asked to
be taken on to help. Said they would bring their punt; without local
help we should do no good. All true enough, no doubt, but what a
nuisance they’d be. I got out of it——”
“It’s just as well you did,” I interposed. “We shall never be able to
leave the boat by herself. I believe we’re watched,” and I related my
experience.
“H’m! It’s a pity you didn’t see who it was. Confound that bobstay!”
(his tactful way of reflecting on my clumsiness); “which way did he
run?” I pointed vaguely into the west. “Not towards the island? I
wonder if it’s someone off one of those galliots. There are three
anchored in the channel over there; you can see their lights. You
didn’t hear a boat pulling off?”
I explained that I had been a miserable failure as a detective.
“You’ve done jolly well, I think,” said Davies. “If you had shouted
when you first heard him we should know less still. And we’ve got a
boot, which may come in useful. Anchor out all right? Let’s get below.”
We smoked and talked till the new flood, lapping softly round the
_Dulcibella_, raised her without a jar.
Of course, I argued, there might be nothing in it. The visitor might
have been a commonplace thief; an apparently deserted yacht was a
tempting bait. Davies scouted this possibility from the first.
“They’re not like that in Germany,” he said. “In Holland, if you like,
they’ll do anything. And I don’t like that turning out of the lantern
to gain time, if we were away.”
Nor did I. In spite of my blundering in details, I welcomed the
incident as the first concrete proof that the object of our quest was
no mare’s nest. The next point was what was the visitor’s object? If to
search, what would he have found?
“The charts, of course, with all our corrections and notes, and the
log. They’d give us away,” was Davies’s instant conclusion. Not having
his faith in the channel theory, I was lukewarm about his precious
charts.
“After all, we’re doing nothing wrong, as you’ve often said yourself,”
I said.
Still, as a true index to our mode of life they were the only things on
board that could possibly compromise us or suggest that we were
anything more than eccentric young Englishmen cruising for sport
(witness the duck-guns) and pleasure. We had two sets of charts, German
and English. The former we decided to use in practice, and to hide,
together with the log, if occasion demanded. My diary, I resolved,
should never leave my person. Then there were the naval books. Davies
scanned them with a look I knew well.
“There are too many of them,” he said, in the tone of a cook fixing the
fate of superfluous kittens. “Let’s throw them overboard. They’re very
old anyhow, and I know them by heart.”
“Well, not here!” I protested, for he was laying greedy hands on the
shelf; “they’ll be found at low water. In fact, I should leave them as
they are. You had them when you were here before, and Dollmann knows
you had them. If you return without them, it will look queer.” They
were spared.
The English charts, being relatively useless, though more suitable to
our _rôle_ as English yachtsmen, were to be left in evidence, as
shining proofs of our innocence. It was all delightfully casual, I
could not help thinking. A seven-ton yacht does not abound in (dry)
hiding-places, and we were helpless against a drastic search. If there
_were_ secrets on this coast to guard, and we were suspected as spies,
there was nothing to prevent an official visit and warning. There need
be no prowlers scuttling off when alarmed, unless indeed it was thought
wisest to let well alone, if we _were_ harmless, and not to arouse
suspicions where there were none. Here we lost ourselves in conjecture.
Whose agent was the prowler? If Dollmann’s, did Dollmann know now that
the _Dulcibella_ was safe, and back in the region he had expelled her
from? If so, was he likely to return to the policy of violence? We
found ourselves both glancing at the duck-guns strung up under the
racks, and then we both laughed and looked foolish. “A war of wits, and
not of duck-guns,” I opined. “Let’s look at the chart.”
Illustration: Map B of East Friesland. Map B
The reader is already familiar with the general aspect of this singular
region, and I need only remind him that the mainland is that district
of Prussia which is known as East Friesland. It is a _[See Map B]_