The Riddle of the Sands
Low water about five; they would be aground till 7.30. Danger to life?
None. Flares and rescuers? Not likely, with “him who insists” on board;
besides, no one could come, there being no danger. I should have a fair
wind and a fair tide for _my_ trip. Grimm’s coat was on the skylight;
we were both clean-shaved.
The helmsman gazed ahead, intent on his difficult course, and the wind
howled to perfection. I knelt up and examined one of the davit-tackles.
There was nothing remarkable about it, a double and a single block
(like our own peak halyards), the lower one hooked into a ring in the
boat, the hauling part made fast to a cleat on the davit itself.
Something there must be to give lateral support or the boat would have
racketed abroad in the roll outside. The support, I found, consisted of
two lanyards spliced to the davits and rove through holes in the keel.
These I leaned over and cut with my pocket-knife; the result being a
barely perceptible swaying of the boat, for the tug was under the lee
of sands and on an even keel. Then I left my hiding-place, climbing out
of the stern sheets by the after-davit, and preparing every successive
motion with exquisite tenderness, till I stood on the deck. In another
moment I was at the cabin skylight, lifting Grimm’s long oilskin coat.
(A second’s yielding to temptation here; but no, the skylight was
ground glass, fastened from below. So, on with the coat, up with the
collar, and forward to the wheel on tiptoe.) As soon as I was up to the
engine-room skylight (that is to say, well ahead of the cabin roof) I
assumed a natural step, went up to the pulpit and touched the helmsman
on the arm, as I had seen Grimm do. The man stepped aside, grunting
something about a light, and I took the wheel from him. Grimm was a man
of few words, so I just jogged his satellite, and pointed forward. He
went off like a lamb to his customary place in the bows, not having
dreamt—why should he?—of examining me, but in him I had instantly
recognised one of the crew of the _Kormoran_.
My ruse developed in all its delicious simplicity. We were, I
estimated, about half-way to Norddeich, in the Buse Tief, a channel of
a navigable breadth, at the utmost of two hundred yards at this period
of the tide. Two faint lights, one above the other, twinkled far ahead.
What they meant I neither knew nor cared, since the only use I put them
to was to test the effect of the wheel, for this was the first time I
had ever tasted the sweets of command on a steamboat. A few cautious
essays taught me the rudiments, and nothing could hinder the
catastrophe now.
I edged over to starboard—that was the side I had selected—and again a
little more, till the glistening back of the look-out gave a slight
movement; but he was a well-drilled minion, with implicit trust in the
“old man”. Now, hard over! and spoke by spoke I gave her the full
pressure of the helm. The look-out shouted a warning, and I raised my
arm in calm acknowledgement. A cry came from the lighter, and I
remember I was just thinking “What the Dickens’ll happen to her?” when
the end came; a _euthanasia_ so mild and gradual (for the sands are
fringed with mud) that the disaster was on us before I was aware of it.
There was just the tiniest premonitory shuddering as our keel clove the
buttery medium, a cascade of ripples from either beam, and the wheel
jammed to rigidity in my hands, as the tug nestled up to her
resting-place.
In the scene of panic that followed, it is safe to say that I was the
only soul on board who acted with methodical tranquillity. The look-out
flew astern like an arrow, bawling to the lighter. Grimm, with the
passengers tumbling up after him, was on deck in an instant, storming
and cursing; flung himself on the wheel which I had respectfully
abandoned, jangled the telegraph, and wrenched at the spokes. The tug
listed over under the force of the tide; wind, darkness, and rain
aggravated the confusion.
For my part, I stepped back behind the smoke stack, threw off my robe
of office, and made for the boat. Long and bitter experience of running
aground had told me that that was sure to be wanted. On the way I
cannoned into one of the passengers and pressed him into my service;
incidentally seeing his face, and verifying an old conjecture. It was
one who, in Germany, has a better right to insist than anyone else.
As we reached the davits there was a report like a pistol-shot from the
port-side—the tow-rope parting, I believe, as the lighter with her
shallower draught swung on past the tug. Fresh tumult arose, in which I
heard: “Lower the boat,” from Grimm; but the order was already
executed. My ally the Passenger and I had each cast off a tackle, and
slacked away with a run; that done, I promptly clutched the wire guy to
steady myself, and tumbled in. (It was not far to tumble, for the tug
listed heavily to starboard; think of our course, and the set of the
ebb stream, and you will see why.) The forward fall unhooked sweetly;
but the after one lost play. “Slack away,” I called, peremptorily, and
felt for my knife. My helper above obeyed; the hook yielded; I filliped
away the loose tackle, and the boat floated away.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
We Achieve our Double Aim
When, exactly, the atmosphere of misunderstanding on the stranded tug
was dissipated, I do not know, for by the time I had fitted the
rowlocks and shipped sculls, tide and wind had caught me, and were
sweeping me merrily back on the road to Norderney, whose lights
twinkled through the scud in the north. With my first few strokes I
made towards the lighter—which I could see sagging helplessly to
leeward—but as soon as I thought I was out of sight of the tug, I
pulled round and worked out my own salvation. There was an outburst of
shouting which soon died away. Full speed on a falling tide! They were
pinned there for five hours sure. It was impossible to miss the way,
and with my stout allies heaving me forward, I made short work of the
two-mile passage. There was a sharp tussle at the last, where the Riff
Gat poured its stream across my path, and then I was craning over my
shoulder, God knows with what tense anxiety, for the low hull and taper
mast of the _Dulcibella_. Not there! No, not where I had left her. I
pulled furiously up the harbour past a sleeping ferry-steamer
and—praise Heaven!—came on her warped alongside the jetty.
“Who’s that?” came from below, as I stepped on board.
“Hush! it’s me.” And Davies and I were pawing one another in the dark
of the cabin.
“Are you all right, old chap?” said he.
“Yes; are you? A match! What’s the time? Quick!”
“Good Heavens, Carruthers, what the blazes have you done to yourself?”
(I suspect I cut a pretty figure after my two days’ outing.)
“Ten past three. It’s the invasion of England! Is Dollmann at the
villa?”
“Invasion?”
“Is Dollmann at the villa?”
“Yes.”
“Is the _Medusa_ afloat?”
“No, on the mud.”
“The devil! Are _we_ afloat?”
“I think so still, but they made me shift.”
“Think! Track her out! Pole her out! Cut those warps!”
For a few strenuous minutes we toiled at the sweeps till the
_Dulcibella_ was berthed ahead of the steamer, in deeper water.
Meanwhile I had whispered a few facts.
“How soon can you get under way?” I asked.
“Ten minutes.”
“When’s daylight?”
“Sunrise about seven, first dawn about five. Where are we bound?”
“Holland, or England.”
“Are they invading it now?” said Davies, calmly.
“No, only rehearsing!” I laughed, wildly.
“Then we can wait.”
“We can wait exactly an hour and a half. Come ashore and knock up
Dollmann; we must denounce him, and get them both aboard; it’s now or
never. Holy Saints! man, not as you are!” (He was in pyjamas.) “Sea
clothes!”
While he put on Christian attire, I resumed my facts and sketched a
plan. “Are you watched?” I asked.
“I think so; by the _Kormoran_’s men.”
“Is the _Kormoran_ here?”
“Yes.”
“The men?”
“Not to-night. Grimm called for them in that tug. I was watching. And,
Carruthers, the _Blitz_ is here.”
“Where?”
“In the roads outside—didn’t you see her?”
“Wasn’t looking. Her skipper’s safe anyway; so’s Böhme, so’s the
Tertium Quid, and so are the _Kormoran_’s men. The coast’s clear—it’s
now or never.”
Once more we were traversing the long jetty and the silent streets,
rain driving at our backs. We trod on air, I think; I remember no
fatigue. Davies sometimes broke into a little run, muttering
“scoundrel” to himself.
“I was right—only upside down,” he murmured more than once. “Always
really right—those channels are the key to the whole concern. Chatham,
our only eastern base—no North Sea base or squadron—they’d land at one
of those God-forsaken flats off the Crouch and Blackwater.”
“It seems a wild scheme,” I observed.
“Wild? In a way. So is _any_ invasion. But it’s thorough; it’s German.
No other country could do it. It’s all dawning on me—by Jove! It will
be at the _Wash_—much the nearest, and as sandy as this side.”
“How’s Dollmann been?” I asked.
“Polite, but queer and jumpy. It’s too long a story.”
“Clara?”
“_She’s_ all right. By Jove! Carruthers—never mind.”
We found a night-bell at the villa door and rang it lustily. A window
aloft opened, and “A message from Commander von Brüning—urgent,” I
called up.
The window shut, and soon after the hall was lighted and the door
opened by Dollmann in a dressing-gown.
“Good morning, Lieutenant X——,” I said, in English. “Stop, we’re
friends, you fool!” as the door was flung nearly to. It opened very
slowly again, and we walked in.
“Silence!” he hissed. The sweat stood on his steep forehead and a
hectic flush on either cheek, but there was a smile—what a smile!—on
his lips. Motioning us to tread noiselessly (a vain ideal for me), he
led the way to the sitting-room we knew, switched on the light, and
faced us.
“Well?” he said, in English, still smiling.
I consulted my watch, and I may say that if my hand was an index to my
general appearance, I must have looked the most abject ruffian under
heaven.
“We probably understand one another,” I said, “and to explain is to
lose time. We sail for Holland, or perhaps England, at five at the
latest, and we want the pleasure of your company. We promise you
immunity—on certain conditions, which can wait. We have only two
berths, so that we can only accommodate Miss Clara besides yourself.”
He smiled on through this terse harangue, but the smile froze, as
though beneath it raged some crucial debate. Suddenly he laughed (a
low, ironical laugh).
“You fools,” he said, “you confounded meddlesome young idiots; I
thought I had done with you. Promise me immunity? Give me till five? By
God, I’ll give you five minutes to be off to England and be damned to
you, or else to be locked up for spies! What the devil do you take me
for?”
“A traitor in German service,” said Davies, none too firmly. We were
both taken aback by this slashing attack.
“A tr——? You pig-headed young marplots! I’m in _British_ service!
You’re wrecking the work of years—and on the very threshold of
success.”
For an instant Davies and I looked at one another in stupefaction. He
lied—I could swear he lied; but how make sure?
“Why did you try to wreck Davies?” said I, mechanically.
“Pshaw! They made me clear him out. I knew he was safe, and safe he
is.”
There was only one thing for it—a last finesse, to put him to the
proof.
“Very well,” I said, after a moment or two, “we’ll clear out—silence,
Davies!—as it appears we have acted in error; but it’s right to tell
you that we know everything.”
“Not so loud, curse you! What do you know?”
“I was taking notes at Memmert the other night.”
“Impossible!”
“Thanks to Davies. Under difficulties, of course, but I heard quite