The Riddle of the Sands

by Erskine Childers

  XVII. Clearing the Air

  'HAS he gone to get the police, do you think?' said Davies, grimly.

  'I don't think so,' said I. 'Let's go aboard before that Customsfellow buttonholes us.'

  A diminished row of stolid Frisians still ruminated over the_Dulcibella_. Friend Grimm was visible smoking on his forecastle. Wewent on board in silence.

  'First of all, where exactly is Memmert?' I said.

  Davies pulled down the chart, said 'There,' and flung himself at fulllength on a sofa.

  The reader can see Memmert for himself. South of Juist, _[see Map B]_abutting on the Ems delta, lies an extensive sandbank calledNordland, whose extreme western rim remains uncovered at the highesttides; the effect being to leave a C-shaped island, a mere paring ofsand like a boomerang, nearly two miles long, but only 150 yards orso broad, of curiously symmetrical outline, except at one spot, whereit bulges to the width of a quarter of a mile. On the English chartits nakedness was absolute, save for a beacon at the south; but theGerman chart marked a building at the point where the bulge occurs.This was evidently the dep?t. 'Fancy living there!' I thought, forthe very name struck cold. No wonder Grimm was grim; and no wonder hewas used to seek change of air. But the advantages of the site wereobvious. It was remarkably isolated, even in a region where isolationis the rule; yet it was conveniently near the wreck, which, as we hadheard, lay two miles out on the Juister Reef. Lastly, it was clearlyaccessible at any state of the tide, for the six-fathom channel ofthe Ems estuary runs hard up to it on the south, and thence sends offan eastward branch which closely borders the southern horn, thusoffering an anchorage at once handy, deep, and sheltered from seawardgales.

  Such was Memmert, as I saw it on the chart, taking in its featuresmechanically, for while Davies lay there heedless and taciturn, apretence of interest was useless. I knew perfectly well what wasbetween us, but I did not see why I should make the first move; for Ihad a grievance too, an old one. So I sat back on my sofa and jotteddown in my notebook the heads of our conversation at the inn while itwas fresh in my memory, and strove to draw conclusions. But thesilence continuing and becoming absurd, I threw my pride to thewinds, and my notebook on the table.

  'I say, Davies,' I said, 'I'm awfully sorry I chaffed you aboutFr?ulein Dollmann.' (No answer.) 'Didn't you see I couldn't help it?'

  'I wish to Heaven we had never come in here,' he said, in a hardvoice; 'it comes of landing _ever_.' (I couldn't help smiling atthis, but he wasn't looking at me.) 'Here we are, given away, movedon, taken in charge, arranged for like Cook's tourists. I couldn'tfollow your game--too infernally deep for me, but----' That stung me.

  'Look here,' I said, 'I did my best. It was you that muddled it. Whydid you harp on ducks?'

  'We could have got out of that. Why did you harp on everythingidiotic--your letter, the Foreign Office, the 'Kormoran', the wreck,the----?'

  'You're utterly unreasonable. Didn't you see what traps there were? Iwas driven the way I went. We started unprepared, and we're jollywell out of it.'

  Davies drove on blindly. 'It was bad enough telling all about thechannels and exploring----'

  'Why, you agreed to that yourself!'

  'I gave in to you. We can't explore any more now'.

  'There's the wreck, though.'

  'Oh, hang the wreck! It's all a blind, or he wouldn't have made somuch of it. There are all these channels to be----'

  'Oh, hang the channels! I know we wanted a free hand, but we've gotto go to Norderney some time, and if Dollmann's away----'

  'Why did you harp on Miss Dollmann?' said Davies.

  We had worked round, through idle recrimination, to the real point ofdeparture. I knew Davies was not himself, and would not return tohimself till the heart of the matter was reached.

  'Look here,' I said, 'you brought me out here to help you, because,as you say, I was clever, talked German, and--liked yachting (Icouldn't resist adding this). But directly you really _want_ me youturn round and go for me.'

  'Oh, I didn't mean all that, really,' said Davies; 'I'm sorry--I wasworried.'

  'I know; but it's your own fault. You haven't been fair with me.There's a complication in this business that you've never talkedabout. I've never pressed you because I thought you would confide inme. You----'

  'I know I haven't,' said Davies.

  'Well, you see the result. Our hand was forced. To have said nothingabout Dollmann was folly--to have said he tried to wreck you wasequal folly. The story we agreed on was the best and safest, and youtold it splendidly. But for two reasons I had to harp on thedaughter--one because your manner when they were mentioned was soconfused as to imperil our whole position. Two, because your story,though the safest, was, at the best, suspicious. Even on your ownshowing Dollmann treated you badly--discourteously, say: though youpretended not to have seen it. You want a motive to neutralize that,and induce you to revisit him in a friendly way. I supplied it, orrather I only encouraged von Br?ning to supply it.'

  'Why revisit him, after all?' said Davies.

  'Oh, come----'

  'But don't you see what a hideous fix you've put me in? How caddish Ifeel about it?'

  I did see, and I felt a cad myself, as his full distress came home tome. But I felt, too, that, whosesoever the fault, we had drifted intoa ridiculous situation, and were like characters in one of thosetiresome plays where misunderstandings are manufactured and socarefully sustained that the audience are too bored to wait for the_d?nouement._ You can do that on the stage; but we wanted our_d?nouement._

  'I'm very sorry,' I said, 'but I wish you had told me all about it.Won't you now? Just the bare, matter-of-fact truth. I hate sentiment,and so do you.'

  'I find it very difficult to tell people things,' said Davies,'things like this.' I waited. 'I did like her--very much.' Our eyesmet for a second, in which all was said that need be said, as betweentwo of our phlegmatic race. 'And she's--separate from him. That wasthe reason of all my indecisions.' he hurried on. 'I only told youhalf at Schlei. I know I ought to have been open, and asked youradvice. But I let it slide. I've been hoping all along that we mightfind what we want and win the game without coming to close quartersagain.'

  I no longer wondered at his devotion to the channel theory, since,built on conviction, it was thus doubly fortified.

  'Yet you always knew what might happen,' I said. 'At Schlei you spokeof "settling with" Dollmann.'

  'I know. When I thought of him I was mad. I made myself forget theother part.'

  'Which recurred at Brunsb?ttel?' I thought of the news we had there.

  'Yes.'

  'Davies, we must have no more secrets. I'm going to speak out. Areyou sure you've not misunderstood her? You say--and I'm willing toassume it--that Dollmann's a traitor and a murderer.'

  'Oh, hang the murder part!' said Davies, impatiently. 'What does_that_ matter?'

  'Well, traitor. Very good; but in that case I suspect his daughter.No! let me go on. She was useful, to say the least. She encouragedyou--you've told me that--to make that passage with them.'

  'Stop, Carruthers,' said Davies, firmly. 'I know you mean kindly; butit's no use. I believe in her.'

  I thought for a moment.

  'In that case,' I said, 'I've something to propose. When we get outof this place let's sail straight away to England.' '(There,Commander von Br?ning,' I thought, 'you never can say I neglectedyour advice.')

  'No!' exclaimed Davies, starting up and facing me. 'I'm hanged if wewill. Think what's at stake. Think of that traitor--plotting withGermans. My God!'

  'Very good,' I said. 'I'm with you for going on. But let's facefacts. We _must_ scotch Dollmann. We can't do so without hurting_her_.'

  'Can't we _possibly_?'

  'Of course not; be sensible, man. Face that. Next point; it's absurdto hope that we need not revisit them--it's ten to one that we must,if we're to succeed. His attempt on you is the whole foundation ofour suspicions. And we don't even know for certain who he _is_ yet.We're committed, I kno
w, to going straight to Norderney now; but evenif we weren't, should we do any good by exploring and prying? It'svery doubtful. We know we're watched, if not suspected, and thatdisposes of nine-tenths of our power. The channels? Yes, but is itlikely they'll let us learn them by heart, if they're of such vitalimportance, even if we are thought to be _bona fide_ yachtsmen? And,seriously, apart from their value in war, which I don't deny, arethey at the root of this business? But we'll talk about that in amoment. The point now is, what shall we do if we meet the Dollmanns?'

  Beads of sweat stood on Davies's brow. I felt like a torturer, but itcould not be helped. 'Tax him with having wrecked you? Our questwould be at an end! We must be friendly. You must tell the story youtold to-day, and chance his believing it. If he does, so much thebetter; if he doesn't, he won't dare say so, and we still havechances. We gain time, and have a tremendous hold on him--_if_ we'refriendly.' Davies winced. I gave another turn to the screw. 'Friendlywith them _both,_ of course. You were before, you know; you liked hervery much--you must seem to still.'

  'Oh, stop your infernal logic.'

  'Shall we chuck it and go to England?' I asked again, as aninquisitor might say, 'Have you had enough?' No answer. I went on:'To make it easier, you _do_ like her still.' I had roused my victimat last.

  'What the devil do you mean, Carruthers? That I'm to trade on myliking for her--on her innocence, to--good God! what _do_ you mean?'

  'No, no, not that. I'm not such a cad, or such a fool, or so ignorantof you. If she knows nothing of her father's character and likesyou--and you like her--and you are what you are--oh Heavens! man,face it, realize it! But what I mean is this: is she, _can_ she be,what you think? Imagine his position if we're right about him; thevilest creature on God's earth--a disgraceful past to have beendriven to this--in the pay of Germany. I want to spare you misery.' Iwas going to add: 'And if you're on your guard, to increase ourchances.' But the utter futility of such suggestions silenced me.What a plan I had foreshadowed! An enticing plan and a fair one, too,as against such adversaries; turning this baffling cross-current toadvantage as many a time we had worked eddies of an adverse tide inthese difficult seas. But Davies was Davies, and there was an end ofit; his faith and simplicity shamed me. And the pity of it, thecruelty of it, was that his very qualities were his last torture,raising to the acutest pitch the conflict between love andpatriotism. Remember that the latter was his dominant life-motive,and that here and now was his chance--if you would gauge thebitterness of that conflict.

  It was in its last throes now. His elbows were on the table, and histwitching hands pressed on his forehead. He took them away.

  'Of course we must go on. It can't be helped, that's all.'

  'And you believe in her?'

  'I'll remember what you've said. There may be some way out. And--I'drather not talk about that any more. What about the wreck?'

  Further argument was futile. Davies by an effort seemed to sweep thesubject from his thoughts, and I did my best to do the same. At anyrate the air was cleared--we were friends; and it only remained tograpple with the main problem in the light of the morning'sinterview.

  Every word that I could recollect of that critical conversation Ireviewed with Davies, who had imperfectly understood what he had notbeen directly concerned in; and, as I did so, I began to see withwhat cleverness each succeeding sentence of von Br?ning's wasdesigned to suit both of two contingencies. If we were innocenttravellers, he was the genial host, communicative and helpful. If wewere spies, his tactics had been equally applicable. He had outdoneus in apparent candour, hiding nothing which he knew we woulddiscover for ourselves, and contriving at the same time both to gainknowledge and control of our movements, and to convey us warnings,which would only be understood if we were guilty, that we wereplaying an idle and perilous game, and had better desist. But in onerespect we had had the advantage, and that was in the version Davieshad given of his stranding on the Hohenh?rn. Inscrutable as ourquestioner was, he let it appear not only that the incident was newto him, but that he conjectured at its sinister significance. Alittle cross-examination on detail would have been fatal to Davies'sversion; but that was where our strength lay; he dared notcross-examine for fear of suggesting to Davies suspicions which hemight never have felt. Indeed, I thought I detected that fearunderlying his whole attitude towards us, and it strengthened aconviction which had been growing in me since Grimm's furtivemidnight visit, that the secret of this coast was of so important anddelicate a nature that rather than attract attention to it at all,overt action against intruders would be taken only in the lastresort, and on irrefragable proofs of guilty intention.

  Now for our clues. I had come away with two, each the germ of adistinct theory, and both obscured by the prevailing ambiguity. Now,however, as we thumbed the chart and I gave full rein to my fancy,one of them, the idea of Memmert, gained precision and vigour everymoment. True, such information as we had about the French wreck andhis own connection with it was placed most readily at our disposal byvon Br?ning; but I took it to be information calculated only toforestall suspicion, since he was aware that we already associatedhim with Dollmann, possibly also with Grimm, and it was only likelythat in the ordinary course we should learn that the trio werejointly concerned in Memmert. So much for the facts; as for theconstruction he wished us to put on them, I felt sure it wasabsolutely false. He wished to give us the impression that the buriedtreasure itself was at the root of any mystery we might have scented.I do not know if the reader fully appreciated that astutesuggestion--the hint that secrecy as to results was necessary owingboth to the great sum at stake and the flaw in the title, which hehad been careful to inform us had passed through British hands. Whathe meant to imply was, 'Don't be surprised if you have midnightvisitors; Englishmen prowling along this coast are suspected of beingLloyd's agents.' An ingenious insinuation, which, at the time it wasmade, had caused me to contemplate a new and much more commonplacesolution of our enigma than had ever occurred to us; but it was onlya passing doubt, and I dismissed it altogether now.

  The fact was, it either explained everything or nothing. As long aswe held to our fundamental assumption--that Davies had been decoyedinto a death-trap in September--it explained nothing. It was toofantastic to suppose that the exigencies of a commercial speculationwould lead to such extremities as that. We were not in the South SeaIslands; nor were we the puppets of a romance. We were in Europe,dealing not only with a Dollmann, but with an officer of the GermanImperial Navy, who would scarcely be connected with a commercialenterprise which could conceivably be reduced to forwarding itsobjects in such a fashion. It was shocking enough to find him inrelations with such a scoundrel at all, but it was explicable if themotive were imperial--not so if it were financial. No; to accept thesuggestion we must declare the whole quest a mare's nest frombeginning to end; the attempt on Davies a delusion of his own fancy,the whole structure we had built on it, baseless.

  'Well,' I can hear the reader saying, 'why not? You, at any rate,were always a little sceptical.'

  Granted; yet I can truthfully say I scarcely faltered for a moment.Much had happened since Schlei Fiord. I had seen the mechanism of thedeath-trap; I had lived with Davies for a stormy fortnight, everyhour of which had increased my reliance on his seamanship, and also,therefore, on his account of an event which depended largely for itscorrect interpretation on a balanced nautical judgement. Finally, Ihad been unconsciously realizing, and knew from his mouth to-day,that he had exercised and acted on that judgement in the teeth ofpersonal considerations, which his loyal nature made overwhelming intheir force.

  What, then, was the meaning of Memmert? At the outset it riveted myattention on the Ems estuary, whose mouth it adjoins. We had alwaysrather neglected the Ems in our calculations; with some excuse, too,for at first sight its importance bears no proportion to that of thethree greater estuaries. The latter bear vessels of the largesttonnage and deepest draught to the very quays of Hamburg,Bremerhaven, and the naval dockyard of Wilhelmshaven; w
hile two ofthem, the Elbe and the Weser, are commerce carriers on the vastestscale for the whole empire. The Ems, on the other hand, only servestowns of the second class. A glance at the chart explains this. Yousee a most imposing estuary on a grander scale than any of the otherthree taken singly, with a length of thirty miles and a frontage onthe North Sea of ten miles, or one-seventieth, roughly, of the wholeseaboard; encumbered by outlying shoals, and blocked in the centre bythe island of Borkum, but presenting two fine deep-water channels tothe incoming vessel. These roll superbly through enormous sheets ofsand, unite and approach the mainland in one stately stream threemiles in breadth. But then comes a sad falling off. The navigablefairway shoals and shrinks, middle grounds obstruct it, and shelvingforeshores persistently deny it that easy access to the land thatalone can create great seaboard cities. All the ports of the Ems aretidal; the harbour of Delfzyl, on the Dutch side, dries at low water,and Emden, the principal German port, can only be reached by a lockand a mile of canal.

  But this depreciation is only relative. Judged on its merits, and notby the standard of the Elbe, it is a very important river. Emden is aflourishing and growing port. For shallow craft the stream isnavigable far into the interior, where, aided by tributaries andallied canals (notably the connection with the Rhine at Dortmund,then approaching completion), it taps the resources of a great area.Strategically there was still less reason for underrating it. It isone of the great maritime gates of Germany; and it is the westernmostgate, the nearest to Great Britain and France, contiguous to Holland.Its great forked delta presents two yawning breaches in that singularrampart of islets and shoals which masks the German seaboard--aseaboard itself so short in proportion to the empire's bulk, that, asDavies used to say, 'every inch of it must be important'. Warshipscould force these breaches, and so threaten the mainland at one ofits few vulnerable points. Quay accommodation is no object to suchvisitors; intricate navigation no deterrent. Even the heaviestbattleships could approach within striking distance of the land,while cruisers and military transports could penetrate to the levelof Emden itself. Emden, as Davies had often pointed out, is connectedby canal with Wilhelmshaven on the Jade, a strategic canal, designedto carry gunboats as well as merchandise.

  Now Memmert was part of the outer rampart; its tapering sickle of sanddirectly commanded the eastern breach; it _must_ be connected with thedefence of this breach. No more admirable base could be imagined;self-contained and isolated, yet sheltered, accessible--better thanJuist and Borkum. And supposing it were desired to shroud the nature ofthe work in absolute secrecy, what a pretext lay to hand in the wreckand its buried bullion, which lay in the offing opposite the fairway!

  On Memmert was the dep?t for the salvage operations. Salvage work,with its dredging and diving, offered precisely the disguise that wasneeded. It was submarine, and so are some of the most importantdefences of ports, mines, and dirigible torpedoes. All the details ofthe story were suggestive: the 'small local company'; the 'engineerfrom Bremen' (who, I wondered, was he?); the few shares held by vonBr?ning, enough to explain his visits; the stores and gear comingfrom Wilhelmshaven, a naval dockyard.

  Try as I would I could not stir Davies's imagination as mine wasstirred. He was bent on only seeing the objections, which, of course,were numerous enough. Could secrecy be ensured under pretext ofsalving a wreck? It must be a secret shared by many--divers, crews oftugs, employees of all sorts. I answered that trade secrets are oftenpreserved under no less difficult conditions, and why not imperialsecrets?

  'Why the Ems and not the Elbe?' he asked.

  'Perhaps,' I replied, 'the Elbe, too, holds similar mysteries.'Neuerk Island might, for all we knew, be another Memmert; whencruising in that region we had had no eyes for such things, absorbedin a preconceived theory of our own. Besides, we must not takeourselves too seriously. We were amateurs, not experts in coastdefence, and on such vague grounds to fastidiously reject a cluewhich went so far as this one was to quarrel with our luck. There wasa disheartening corollary to this latter argument that in my new-bornzeal I shut my eyes to. As amateurs, were we capable of using ourclue and gaining exact knowledge of the defences in question? Davies,I knew, felt this strongly, and I think it accounted for his lukewarmview of Memmert more than he was aware. He clung more obstinatelythan ever to his 'channel theory', conscious that it offered the onesort of opportunity of which with his peculiar gifts he was able totake advantage. He admitted, however, that it was under a cloud atpresent, for if knowledge of the coastwise navigation were a crime initself we should scarcely be sitting here now. 'It's something to dowith it, anyhow!' he persisted.