The Riddle of the Sands
less a mighty divinity. Davies left his post, and rowed stroke. Under
our united efforts the dinghy advanced in strenuous leaps, hurling
miniature rollers on the bank beside us. My palms, seasoned as they
were, were smarting with watery blisters. The pace was too hot for my
strength and breath.
“I must have a rest,” I gasped.
“Well, I think we’re over it,” said Davies.
We stopped the dinghy dead, and he stabbed over the side with the
boathook. It passed gently astern of us, and even my bewildered brain
took in the meaning of that.
“Three feet and the current with us. _Well_ over it,” he said. “I’ll
paddle on while you rest and feed.”
It was a few minutes past one and we still, as he calculated, had eight
miles before us, allowing for bends.
“But it’s a mere question of muscle,” he said.
I took his word for it, and munched at tongue and biscuits. As for
muscle, we were both in hard condition. He was fresh, and what distress
I felt was mainly due to spasmodic exertion culminating in that
desperate spurt. As for the fog, it had more than once shown a faint
tendency to lift, growing thinner and more luminous, in the manner of
fogs, always to settle down again, heavy as a quilt.
Note the spot marked “second rest” (approximately correct, Davies says)
and the course of the channel from that point westward. You will see it
broadening and deepening to the dimensions of a great river, and
finally merging in the estuary of the Ems. Note, too, that its northern
boundary, the edge of the now uncovered Nordland Sand, leads, with one
interruption _(marked A),_ direct to Memmert, and is boomed throughout.
You will then understand why Davies made so light of the rest of his
problem. Compared with the feats he had performed, it was child’s play,
for he always had that visible margin to keep touch with if he chose,
or to return to in case of doubt. As a matter of fact—observe our
dotted line—he made two daring departures from it, the first purely to
save time, the second partly to save time and partly to avoid the very
awkward spot marked A, where a creek with booms and a little delta of
its own interrupts the even bank. During the first of these
departures—the shortest but most brilliant—he let me do the rowing, and
devoted himself to the niceties of the course; during the second, and
through both the intermediate stages, he rowed himself, with occasional
pauses to inspect the chart. We fell into a long, measured stroke, and
covered the miles rapidly, scarcely exchanging a single word till, at
the end of a long pull through vacancy, Davies said suddenly:
“Now where are we to land?”
A sandbank was looming over us crowned by a lonely boom.
“Where are we?”
“A quarter of a mile from Memmert.”
“What time is it?”
“Nearly three.”
CHAPTER XXII.
The Quartette
His _tour de force_ was achieved, and for the moment something like
collapse set in.
“What in the world have we come here for?” he muttered; “I feel a bit
giddy.”
I made him drink some whisky, which revived him; and then, speaking in
whispers, we settled certain points.
I alone was to land. Davies demurred to this out of loyalty, but common
sense, coinciding with a strong aversion of his own, settled the
matter. Two were more liable to detection than one. I spoke the
language well, and if challenged could cover my retreat with a gruff
word or two; in my woollen overalls, sea-boots, oilskin coat, with a
sou’-wester pulled well over my eyes, I should pass in a fog for a
Frisian. Davies must mind the dinghy; but how was I to regain it? I
hoped to do so without help, by using the edge of the sand; but if he
heard a long whistle he was to blow the foghorn.
“Take the pocket-compass,” he said. “Never budge from the shore without
using it, and lay it on the ground for steadiness. Take this scrap of
chart, too—it may come in useful; but you can’t miss the depôt, it
looks to be close to the shore. How long will you be?”
“How long have I got?”
“The young flood’s making—has been for nearly an hour—that bank (he
measured it with his eye) will be covering in an hour and a half.”
“That ought to be enough.”
“Don’t run it too fine. It’s steep here, but it may shelve farther on.
If you have to wade you’ll never find me, and you’ll make a deuce of a
row. Got your watch, matches, knife? No knife? Take mine; never go
anywhere without a knife.” (It was his seaman’s idea of efficiency.)
“Wait a bit, we must settle a place to meet at in case I’m late and
can’t reach you here.”
“_Don’t_ be late. We’ve got to get back to the yacht before we’re
missed.”
“But I may have to hide and wait till dark—the fog may clear.”
“We were fools to come, I believe,” said Davies, gloomily. “There _are_
no meeting-places in a place like this. Here’s the best I can see on
the chart—a big triangular beacon marked on the very point of Memmert.
You’ll pass it.”
“All right. I’m off.”
“Good luck,” said Davies, faintly.
I stepped out, climbed a miry glacis of five or six feet, reached hard
wet sand, and strode away with the sluggish ripple of the Balje on my
left hand. A curtain dropped between me and Davies, and I was
alone—alone, but how I thrilled to feel the firm sand rustle under my
boots; to know that it led to dry land, where, whatever befell, I could
give my wits full play. I clove the fog briskly.
Good Heavens! what was that? I stopped short and listened. From over
the water on my left there rang out, dulled by fog, but distinct to the
ear, three double strokes on a bell or gong. I looked at my watch.
“Ship at anchor,” I said to myself. “Six bells in the afternoon watch.”
I knew the Balje was here a deep roadstead, where a vessel entering the
Eastern Ems might very well anchor to ride out a fog.
I was just stepping forward when another sound followed from the same
quarter, a bugle-call this time. Then I understood—only men-of-war
sound bugles—the _Blitz_ was here then; and very natural, too, I
thought, and strode on. The sand was growing drier, the water farther
beneath me; then came a thin black ribbon of weed—high-water mark. A
few cautious steps to the right and I touched tufts of marram grass. It
was Memmert. I pulled out the chart and refreshed my memory. No! there
could be no mistake; keep the sea on my left and I must go right. I
followed the ribbon of weed, keeping it just in view, but walking on
the verge of the grass for the sake of silence. All at once I almost
tripped over a massive iron bar; others, a rusty network of them, grew
into being above and around me, like the arms of a ghostly polyp.
“What infernal spider’s web is this?” I thought, and stumbled clear. I
had strayed into the base of a gigantic tripod, its gaunt legs stayed
and cross-stayed, its apex lost in fog; the beacon, I remembered. A
hundred yards farther and I was down on my knees again, listening with
might and main; for several little sounds were in the air—voices, the
rasp of a boat’s keel, the whistling of a tune. These were straight
ahead. More to the left, seaward, that is, I had aural evidence of the
presence of a steamboat—a small one, for the hiss of escaping steam was
low down. On my right front I as yet heard nothing, but the depôt must
be there.
I prepared to strike away from my base, and laid the compass on the
ground—NW. roughly I made the course. (“South-east—south-east for
coming back,” I repeated inwardly, like a child learning a lesson.)
Then of my two allies I abandoned one, the beach, and threw myself
wholly on the fog.
“Play the game,” I said to myself. “Nobody expects you; nobody will
recognise you.”
I advanced in rapid stages of ten yards or so, while grass disappeared
and soft sand took its place, pitted everywhere with footmarks. I trod
carefully, for obstructions began to show themselves—an anchor, a heap
of rusty cable; then a boat bottom upwards, and, lying on it, a foul
old meerschaum pipe. I paused here and strained my ears, for there were
sounds in many directions; the same whistling (behind me now), heavy
footsteps in front, and somewhere beyond—fifty yards away, I reckoned—a
buzz of guttural conversation; from the same quarter there drifted to
my nostrils the acrid odour of coarse tobacco. Then a door banged.
I put the compass in my pocket (thinking “south-east, south-east”),
placed the pipe between my teeth (ugh! the rank savour of it!) rammed
my sou’-wester hard down, and slouched on in the direction of the door
that had banged. A voice in front called, “Karl Schicker”; a nearer
voice, that of the man whose footsteps I had heard approaching, took it
up and called “Karl Schicker”: I, too, took it up, and, turning my
back, called “Karl Schicker” as gruffly and gutturally as I could. The
footsteps passed quite close to me, and glancing over my shoulder I saw
a young man passing, dressed very like me, but wearing a sealskin cap
instead of a sou’-wester. As he walked he seemed to be counting coins
in his palm. A hail came back from the beach and the whistling stopped.
I now became aware that I was on a beaten track. These meetings were
hazardous, so I inclined aside, but not without misgivings, for the
path led towards the buzz of talk and the banging door, and these were
my only guides to the depôt. Suddenly, and much before I expected it, I
knew rather than saw that a wall was in front of me; now it was
visible, the side of a low building of corrugated iron. A pause to
reconnoitre was absolutely necessary; but the knot of talkers might
have heard my footsteps, and I must at all costs not suggest the
groping of a stranger. I lit a match—two—and sucked heavily (as I had
seen navvies do) at my pipe, studying the trend of the wall by
reference to the sounds. There was a stale dottle wedged in the bowl,
and loathsome fumes resulted. Just then the same door banged again;
another name, which I forget, was called out. I decided that I was at
the end of a rectangular building which I pictured as like an Aldershot
“hut”, and that the door I heard was round the corner to my left. A
knot of men must be gathered there, entering it by turns. Having
expectorated noisily, I followed the tin wall to my _right,_ and
turning a corner strolled leisurely on, passing signs of domesticity, a
washtub, a water-butt, then a tiled approach to an open door. I now was
aware of the corner of a second building, also of zinc, parallel to the
first, but taller, for I could only just see the eave. I was just going
to turn off to this as a more promising field for exploration, when I
heard a window open ahead of me in my original building.
I am afraid I am getting obscure, so I append a rough sketch of the
scene, as I partly saw and chiefly imagined it. It was window (A) that
I heard open. From it I could just distinguish through the fog a hand
protrude, and throw something out—cigar-end? The hand, a clean one with
a gold signet ring, rested for an instant afterwards on the sash, and
then closed the window.
Illustration: diagram, Memmert Salvage Depot
My geography was clear now in one respect. That window belonged to the
same room as the banging door (B); for I distinctly heard the latter
open and shut again, opposite me on the other side of the building. It
struck me that it might be interesting to see into that room. “Play the
game,” I reminded myself, and retreated a few yards back on tiptoe,
then turned and sauntered coolly past the window, puffing my villainous
pipe and taking a long deliberate look into the interior as I
passed—the more deliberate that at the first instant I realised that
nobody inside was disturbing himself about me. As I had expected (in
view of the fog and the time) there was artificial light within. My
mental photograph was as follows: a small room with varnished deal