The Riddle of the Sands
crossing, and that the four of us must inevitably accumulate at the
barrier till the train had steamed away. This, in fact, happened, and
for a minute or two we were all in a group, elaborately indifferent to
one another, silent, but I am sure very conscious. As for me, “secret
laughter tickled all my soul”. When the gates were opened the three
seemed disposed to lag, so I tactfully took my cue, trudged briskly on
ahead, and stopped after a few minutes to listen. Hearing nothing I
went cautiously back and found that they had disappeared; in which
direction was not long in doubt, for I came on a grassy path leading
into the fields on the left or west of the road, and though I could see
no one I heard the distant murmur of receding voices.
I took my bearings collectedly, placed one foot on the path, thought
better of it, and turned back towards Esens. I knew without reference
to the map that that path would bring them to the Benser Tief at a
point somewhere near the timber-yard. In a fog I might have followed
them there; as it was, the night was none too dark, and I had my
strength to husband; and stamped on my memory were the words “the tide
serves”. I judged it a wiser use of time and sinew to anticipate them
at Bensersiel by the shortest road, leaving them to reach it by way of
the devious Tief, to examine which was, I felt convinced, one of their
objects.
It was nine o’clock of a fresh wild night, a halo round the beclouded
moon. I passed through quiet Esens, and in an hour I was close to
Bensersiel, and could hear the sea. In the rooted idea that I should
find Grimm on the outskirts, awaiting visitors, I left the road short
of the village, and made a circuit to the harbour by way of the
sea-wall. The lower windows of the inn shed a warm glow into the night,
and within I could see the village circle gathered over cards, and
dominated as of old by the assertive little postmaster, whose
high-pitched, excitable voice I could clearly distinguish, as he sat
with his cap on the back of his head and a “feine schnapps” at his
elbow. The harbour itself looked exactly the same as I remembered it a
week ago. The post-boat lay in her old berth at the eastern jetty, her
mainsail set and her twin giants spitting over the rail. I hailed them
boldly from the shore (without showing them who I was), and was told
they were starting for Langeoog in a few minutes; the wind was
off-shore, the mails aboard, and the water just high enough. “Did I
want a passage?” “No, I thought I would wait.” Positive that my party
could never have got here so soon, I nevertheless kept an eye on the
galliot till she let go her stern-rope and slid away. One contingency
was eliminated. Some loiterers dispersed, and all port business
appeared to be ended for the night.
Three-quarters of an hour of strained suspense ensued. Most of it I
spent on my knees in a dark angle between the dyke and the western
jetty, whence I had a strategic survey of the basin; but I was driven
at times to relieve inaction by sallies which increased in audacity. I
scouted on the road beyond the bridge, hovered round the lock, and
peered in at the inn parlour; but nowhere could I see a trace of Grimm.
I examined every floating object in the harbour (they were very few),
dropped on to two lighters and pried under tarpaulins, boarded a
deserted tug and two or three clumsy rowboats tied up to a
mooring-post. Only one of these had the look of readiness, the rest
being devoid of oars and rowlocks; a discouraging state of things for a
prospective boat-lifter. It was the sight of these rowboats that
suggested a last and most distracting possibility, namely, that the
boat in waiting, if boat there were, might be not in the harbour at
all, but somewhere on the sands outside the dyke, where, at this high
state of the tide, it would have water and to spare. Back to the dyke
then; but as I peered seaward on the way, contingencies evaporated and
a solid fact supervened, for I saw the lights of a steamboat
approaching the harbour mouth. I had barely time to gain my coign of
vantage before she had swept in between the piers, and with a fitful
swizzling of her screw was turning and backing down to a berth just
ahead of one of the lighters, and not fifty feet from my hiding-place.
A deck-hand jumped ashore with a rope, while the man at the wheel gave
gruff directions. The vessel was a small tug, and the man at the wheel
disclosed his identity when, having rung off his engines, he jumped
ashore also, looked at his watch in the beam of the sidelight, and
walked towards the village. It was Grimm, by the height and build—Grimm
clad in a long tarpaulin coat and a sou’wester. I watched him cross the
shaft of light from the inn window and disappear in the direction of
the canal.
Another sailor now appeared and helped his fellow to tie up the tug.
The two together then went aft and began to set about some job whose
nature I could not determine. To emerge was perilous, so I set about a
job of my own, tearing open my bundle and pulling an oilskin jacket and
trousers over my clothes, and discarding my peaked cap for a
sou’-wester. This operation was prompted instantaneously by the garb of
two sailors, who in hauling on the forward warp came into the field of
the mast-head light.
It was something of a gymnastic masterpiece, since I was lying—or,
rather, standing aslant—on the rough sea-wall, with crannies of brick
for foothold and the water plashing below me; but then I had not lived
in the _Dulcibella_ for nothing. My chain of thought, I fancy, was
this—the tug is to carry my party; I cannot shadow a tug in a rowboat,
yet I intend to shadow my party; I must therefore go with them in the
tug, and the first and soundest step is to mimic her crew. But the next
step was a hard matter, for the crew having finished their job sat side
by side on the bulwarks and lit their pipes. However, a little
pantomime soon occurred, as amusing as it was inspiriting. They seemed
to consult together, looking from the tug to the inn and from the inn
to the tug. One of them walked a few paces inn-wards and beckoned to
the other, who in his turn called something down the engine-room
skylight, and then joined his mate in a scuttle to the inn. Even while
I watched the pantomime I was sliding off my boots, and it had not been
consummated a second before I had them in my arms and was tripping over
the mud in my stocking feet. A dozen noiseless steps and I was over the
bulwarks between the wheel and the smoke-stack, casting about for a
hiding-place. The conventional stowaway hides in the hold, but there
was only a stokehold here, occupied moreover; nor was there an empty
apple-barrel, such as Jim of _Treasure Island_ found so useful. As far
as I could see—and I dared not venture far for fear of the skylight—the
surface of the deck offered nothing secure. But on the farther or
starboard side, rather abaft the beam, there was a small boat in
davits, swung outboard, to which common sense, and perhaps a vague
prescience of its after utility, pointed irresistibly. In any case,
discrimination was out of place, so I mounted the bulwark and gently
entered my refuge. The tackles creaked a trifle, oars and seats impeded
me; but well before the thirsty truants had returned I was settled on
the floor boards between two thwarts, so placed that I could, if
necessary, peep over the gunwale.
The two sailors returned at a run, and very soon after voices
approached, and I recognised that of Herr Schenkel chattering volubly.
He and Grimm boarded the tug and went down a companionway aft, near
which, as I peeped over, I saw a second skylight, no bigger than the
_Dulcibella_’s, illuminated from below. Then I heard a cork drawn, and
the kiss of glasses, and in a minute or two they re-emerged. It was
apparent that Herr Schenkel was inclined to stay and make merry, and
that Grimm was anxious to get rid of him, and none too courteous in
showing it. The former urged that to-morrow’s tide would do, the latter
gave orders to cast off, and at length observed with an angry oath that
the water was falling, and he must start; and, to clinch matters, with
a curt good-night, he went to the wheel and rang up his engines. Herr
Schenkel landed and strutted off in high dudgeon, while the tug’s screw
began to revolve. We had only glided a few yards on when the engines
stopped, a short blast of the whistle sounded, and, before I had had
time to recast the future, I heard a scurry of footsteps from the
direction of the dyke, first on the bank, next on the deck. The last of
these new arrivals panted audibly as he got aboard and dropped on the
planks with an unelastic thud.
Her complement made up, the tug left the harbour, but not alone. While
slowly gathering way the hull checked all at once with a sharp jerk,
recovered, and increased its speed. We had something in tow—what? The
lighter, of course, that had been lying astern of us.
Now I knew what was in that lighter, because I had been to see, half an
hour ago. It was no lethal cargo, but coal, common household coal; not
a full load of it, I remembered—just a good-sized mound amidships,
trimmed with battens fore and aft to prevent shifting. “Well,” thought
I, “this is intelligible enough. Grimm was ostensibly there to call for
a load of coal for Memmert. But does that mean we are going to
Memmert?” At the same time I recalled a phrase overheard at the depôt,
“Only one—half a load.” Why half a load?
For some few minutes there was a good deal of movement on deck, and of
orders shouted by Grimm and answered by a voice from far astern on the
lighter. Presently, however, the tug warmed to her work, the hull
vibrated with energy, and an ordered peace reigned on board. I also
realised that having issued from the boomed channel we had turned
westward, for the wind, which had been blowing us fair, now blew
strongly over the port beam.
I peeped out of my eyrie and was satisfied in a moment that as long as
I made no noise, and observed proper prudence, I was perfectly safe
_until the boat was wanted_. There were no deck lamps; the two
skylights diffused but a sickly radiance, and I was abaft the
side-lights. I was abaft the wheel also, though thrillingly near it in
point of distance—about twelve feet, I should say; and Grimm was
steering. The wheel, I should mention here, was raised, as you often
see them, on a sort of pulpit, approached by two or three steps and
fenced by a breast-high arc of boarding. Only one of the crew was
visible, and he was acting as look-out in the extreme bows, the rays of
the masthead lights—for a second had been hoisted in sign of
towage—glistening on his oilskin back. The other man, I concluded, was
steering the lighter, which I could dimly locate by the pale foam at
her bow.
And the passengers? They were all together aft, three of them, leaning
over the taffrail, with their backs turned to me. One was short and
stout—Böhme unquestionably; the panting and the thud on the planks had
prepared me for that, though where he had sprung from I did not know.
Two were tall, and one of these must be von Brüning. There ought to be
four, I reckoned; but three were all I could see. And what of the
third? It must be he who “insists on coming”, the unknown superior at
whose instance and for whose behoof this secret expedition had been
planned. And who could he be? Many times, needless to say, I had asked
myself that question, but never till now, when I had found the
rendezvous and joined the expedition, did it become one of burning
import.
“Any weather” was another of those stored-up phrases that were _à
propos._ It was a dirty, squally night, not very cold, for the wind
still hung in the S.S.W.—an off-shore wind on this coast, causing no