The Riddle of the Sands
which I hoisted from the deck. It was touch and go for a few minutes,
and then easier.
“It was nine before we had finished replacing the pigs in the hold, a
filthy but delicate operation, as they fit like a puzzle, and if one is
out of place the floor-boards won’t shut down. Coming on deck after it,
we saw to our surprise the _Blitz_, lying at anchor in the Schill
Balje, inside Spiekeroog, about a mile and a half off. She must have
entered the Otzumer Ee at high-water for shelter from the gale; a neat
bit of work for a vessel of her size, as Davies says she draws
nine-foot-ten, and there can’t be more than twelve on the bar at
high-water neaps. Several smacks had run in too, and there were two
galliots farther up our channel, but we couldn’t make out if the
_Kormoran_ was one.
“When the banks uncovered we lay more quietly, so landed and took a
long, tempestuous walk over the Rute, with compass and notebooks.
Returning at two, we found the glass tumbling down almost visibly.
“I suggested running for Bensersiel, one of the mainland villages
south-west of us, on the evening flood, as it seemed just the right
opportunity, if we were to visit one of those ‘siels’ at all. Davies
was very lukewarm, but events overcame him. At 3.30 a black, ragged
cloud, appearing to trail into the very sea, brought up a terrific
squall. This passed, and there was a deathly pause of ten minutes while
the whole sky eddied as with smoke-wreaths. Then an icy puff struck us
from the north-west, rapidly veering till it reached north-east; there
it settled and grew harder every moment.
“‘Sou’-west to north-east—only the worst sort do that,’ said Davies.
“The shift to the east changed the whole situation (as shifts often
have before), making the Rute Flats a lee shore, while to windward lay
the deep lagoons of the Otzumer Ee, bounded indeed by Spiekeroog, but
still offering a big drift for wind and sea. We had to clear out sharp,
to set the mizzen. It was out of the question to beat to windward, for
it was blowing a hurricane in a few minutes. We must go to leeward, and
Davies was for running farther in well behind the Jans sand, and not
risking Bensersiel. A blunder of mine, when I went to the winch to get
up anchor, settled the question. Thirty out of our forty fathoms of
chain were out. Confused by the motion and a blinding sleet-shower that
had come on, and forgetting the tremendous strain on the cable, I cast
the slack off the bitts and left it loose. There was then only one turn
of the chain round the drum, enough in ordinary weather to prevent it
running out. But now my first heave on the winch-lever started it
slipping, and in an instant it was whizzing out of the hawse-pipe and
overboard. I tried to stop it with my foot, stumbled at a heavy plunge
of the yacht, heard something snap below, and saw the last of it
disappear. The yacht fell off the wind, and drifted astern. I shouted,
and had the sense to hoist the reefed foresail at once. Davies had her
in hand in no time, and was steering south-west. Going aft I found him
cool and characteristic.
“‘Doesn’t matter,’ he said; ‘anchor’s buoyed. (Ever since leaving the
Elbe we had had a buoy-line on our anchor against the emergency of
having to slip our cable and run. For the same reason the end of the
chain was not made permanently fast below.) We’ll come back to-morrow
and get it. Can’t now. Should have had to slip it anyhow; wind and sea
too strong. We’ll try for Bensersiel. Can’t trust to a warp and kedge
out here.’
“An exciting run it was, across country, so to speak, over an unboomed
watershed; but we had bearings from our morning’s walk. Shoal water all
the way and a hollow sea breaking everywhere. We soon made out the
Bensersiel booms, but even under mizzen and foresail only we travelled
too fast, and had to heave to outside them, for the channel looked too
shallow still. We lowered half the centreboard and kept her just
holding her own to windward, through a most trying period. In the end
had to run for it sooner than we meant, as we were sagging to leeward
in spite of all, and the light was failing. Bore up at 5.15, and raced
up the channel with the booms on our left scarcely visible in the surf
and rising water. Davies stood forward, signalling—port, starboard, or
steady—with his arms, while I wrestled with the helm, flung from side
to side and flogged by wave-tops. Suddenly found a sort of dyke on our
right just covering with sea. The shore appeared through scud, and men
on a quay shouting. Davies brandished his left arm furiously; I ported
hard, and we were in smoother water. A few seconds more and we were
whizzing through a slit between two wood jetties. Inside a small square
harbour showed, but there was no room to round up properly and no time
to lower sails. Davies just threw the kedge over, and it just got a
grip in time to check our momentum and save our bowsprit from the
quayside. A man threw us a rope and we brought up alongside, rather
bewildered.
“Not more so than the natives, who seemed to think we had dropped from
the sky. They were very friendly, with an undercurrent of
disappointment, having expected salvage work outside, I think. All
showed embarrassing helpfulness in stowing sails, etc. We were rescued
by a fussy person in uniform and spectacles, who swept them aside and
announced himself as the Custom-house officer (fancy such a thing in
this absurd mud-hole!), marched down into the cabin, which was in a
fearful mess and wringing wet, and producing ink, pen, and a huge
printed form, wanted to know our cargo, our crew, our last port, our
destination, our food, stores, and everything. No cargo (pleasure);
captain, Davies; crew, me; last port, Brunsbüttel; destination,
England. What spirits had we? Whisky, produced. What salt? Tin of
Cerebos, produced, and a damp deposit in a saucer. What coffee? etc.
Lockers searched, guns fingered, bunks rifled. Meanwhile the German
charts and the log, the damning clues to our purpose, were in full
evidence, crying for notice which they did not get. (We had forgotten
our precautions in the hurry of our start from the Rute.) When the huge
form was as full as he could make it, he suddenly became human,
talkative, and thirsty; and, when we treated him, patronising. It
seemed to dawn on him that, under our rough clothes and crust of brine
and grime, we were two mad and wealthy aristocrats, worthy _protégés_
of a high official. He insisted on our bringing our cushions to dry at
his house, and to get rid of him we consented, for we were wet, hungry,
and longing to change and wash. He talked himself away at last, and we
hid the log and charts; but he returned, in the postmaster’s uniform
this time before we had finished supper, and haled us and our cushions
up through dark and mud to his cottage near the quay. To reach it we
crossed a small bridge spanning what seemed to be a small river with
sluice-gates, just as we had thought.
“He showed his prizes to his wife, who was quite flustered by the
distinguished strangers, and received the cushions with awe; and next
we were carried off to the Gasthaus and exhibited to the village
circle, where we talked ducks and weather. (Nobody takes us seriously;
I never felt less like a conspirator.) Our friend, who is a
feather-headed chatterbox, is enormously important about his ridiculous
little port, whose principal customer seems to be the Langeoog
post-boat, a galliot running to and fro according to tide. A few
lighters also come down the stream with bricks and produce from the
interior, and are towed to the islands. The harbour has from five to
seven feet in it for two hours out of twelve! Herr Schenkel talked us
back to the yacht, which we found resting on the mud—and here we are.
Davies pretends there are harbour smells, and says he won’t be able to
sleep; is already worrying about how to get away from here. Ashore,
they were saying that it’s impossible, under sail, in strong north-east
winds, the channel being too narrow to tack in. For my part I find it a
huge relief to be in any sort of harbour after a fortnight in the open.
There are no tides or anchors to think about, and no bumping or
rolling. Fresh milk to-morrow!”
CHAPTER XVI.
Commander von Brüning
To resume my story in narrative form.
I was awakened at ten o’clock on the 19th, after a long and delicious
sleep, by Davies’s voice outside, talking his unmistakable German.
Looking out, in my pyjamas, I saw him on the quay above in conversation
with a man in a long mackintosh coat and a gold-laced navy cap. He had
a close-trimmed auburn beard, a keen, handsome face, and an animated
manner. It was raining in a raw air.
They saw me, and Davies said: “Hullo, Carruthers! Here’s Commander von
Brüning from the _Blitz_—that’s ‘meiner Freund’ Carruthers.” (Davies
was deplorably weak in terminations.)
The Commander smiled broadly at me, and I inclined an uncombed head,
while, for a moment, the quest was a dream, and I myself felt
unutterably squalid and foolish. I ducked down, heard them parting, and
Davies came aboard.
“We’re to meet him at the inn for a talk at twelve,” he said.
His news was that the _Blitz_’s steam-cutter had come in on the morning
tide, and he had met von Brüning when marketing at the inn. Secondly,
the _Kormoran_ had also come in, and was moored close by. It was as
clear as possible, therefore, that the latter had watched us, and was
in touch with the _Blitz_, and that both had seized the opportunity of
our being cooped up in Bensersiel to take further stock of us. What had
passed hitherto? Nothing much. Von Brüning had greeted Davies with
cordial surprise, and said he had wondered yesterday if it was the
_Dulcibella_ that he had seen anchored behind Langeoog. Davies had
explained that we had left the Baltic and were on our way home; taking
the shelter of the islands.
“Supposing he comes on board and asks to see our log?” I said.
“Pull it out,” said Davies, “It’s rot, this hiding, after all, I say. I
rather funk this interview; what are we to say? It’s not in my line.”
We resolved abruptly on an important change of plan, replaced the log
and charts in the rack as the first logical step. They contained
nothing but bearings, courses, and the bare data of navigation. To
Davies they were hard-won secrets of vital import, to be lied for,
however hard and distasteful lying was. I was cooler as to their value,
but in any case the same thing was now in both our minds. There would
be great difficulties in the coming interview if we tried to be too
clever and conceal the fact that we had been exploring. We did not know
how much von Brüning knew. When had our surveillance by the _Kormoran_
begun? Apparently at Wangeroog, but possibly in the estuaries, where we
had not fired a shot at duck. Perhaps he knew even more—Dollmann’s
treachery, Davies’s escape, and our subsequent movements—we could not
tell. On the other hand, exploration was known to be a fad of Davies’s,
and in September he had made no secret of it.
It was safer to be consistent now. After breakfast we determined to
find out something about the _Kormoran_, which lay on the mud at the
other side of the harbour, and accordingly addressed ourselves to two
mighty sailors, whose jerseys bore the legend “Post”, and who towered
conspicuous among a row of stolid Frisians on the quay, all gazing
gravely down at us as at a curious bit of marine bric-à-brac. The twins
(for such they proved to be) were most benignant giants, and asked us
aboard the post-boat galliot for a chat. It was easy to bring the talk
naturally round to the point we wished, and we soon gained some most
interesting information, delivered in the broadest Frisian, but
intelligible enough. They called the _Kormoran_ a Memmert boat, or