The Riddle of the Sands

by Erskine Childers

  XXV. I Double Back

  'GOOD-BYE, old chap,' called Davies.

  'Good-bye,' the whistle blew and the ferry-steamer forged ahead,leaving Davies on the quay, bareheaded and wearing his old Norfolkjacket and stained grey flannels, as at our first meeting inFlensburg station. There was no bandaged hand this time, but helooked pinched and depressed; his eyes had black circles round them;and again I felt that same indefinable pathos in him.

  'Your friend is in low spirits,' said B?hme, who was installed on aseat beside me, voluminously caped and rugged against the biting air.It was a still, sunless day.

  'So am I,' I grunted, and it was the literal truth. I was only halfawake, felt unwashed and dissipated, heavy in head and limbs. But forDavies I should never have been where I was. It was he who hadpatiently coaxed me out of my bunk, packed my bag, fed me with teaand an omelette (to which I believe he had devoted peculiarly tendercare), and generally mothered me for departure. While I swallowed mysecond cup he was brushing the mould and smoothing the dents from myfelt hat, which had been entombed for a month in the sail-locker;working at it with a remorseful concern in his face. The onlyinitiative I am conscious of having shown was in the matter of mybag. 'Put in my sea clothes, oils, and all,' I had said; 'I may wantthem again.' There was mortal need of a thorough consultation, butthis was out of the question. Davies did not badger or complain, butonly timidly asked me how we were to meet and communicate, a questionon which my mind was an absolute blank.

  'Look out for me about the 26th,' I suggested feebly.

  Before we left the cabin he gave me a scrap of pencilled paper andsaw that it went safely into my pocket-book. 'Look at it in thetrain,' he said.

  Unable to cope with B?hme, I paced the deck aimlessly as we swunground the See Gat into the Buse Tief, trying to identify the pointwhere we crossed it yesterday blindfold. But the tide was full, andthe waters blank for miles round till they merged in haze. Soon Idrifted down into the saloon, and crouching over a stove pulled outthat scrap of paper. In a crabbed, boyish hand, and much besmudgedwith tobacco-ashes, I found the following notes:

  (1) _Your journey_. [See Maps A and B.] Norddeich 8.58, Emden 10.32,Leer 11.16 (B?hme changes for Bremen), Rheine 1.8 (change), Amsterdam7.17 p.m. Leave again _via_ Hook 8.52, London 9 am.

  (2) The coast-station--_their_ rondezvous--querry is it _Norden_? (Youpass it 9.13)--there is a tidal creek up to it. High-water there on25th, say 10.30 to 11 p.m. It cannot be Norddeich, which I find has adredged-out low-water channel for the steamer, so tide 'serves' wouldnot apply.

  (3) _Your other clews_ (tugs, pilots, depths, railway, Esens, sevenof something). Querry: Scheme of defence by land and sea for NorthSea Coast?

  _Sea_--7 islands, 7 channels between (counting West Ems), very smalldepths (what you said) in most of them. Tugs and pilots for patrolwork behind islands, as I always said. Querry: Rondezvous is forinspecting channels?

  _Land_--Look at railway (map in ulster pocket) running in a loop allround Friesland, a few miles from coast. Querry: To be used as lineof communication for army corps. Troops could be quickly sent to anythreatened point. _Esens_ the base? It is in top centre of loop. VonBrooning dished us fairly over that at Bensersiel.

  _Chatham_--D. was spying after our naval plans for war with Germany.

  Von Brooning runs naval part over here.

  Where does Burmer come in? Querry--you go to Bremen and find outabout him?

  I nodded stupidly over this document--so stupidly that I found myselfwondering whether Burmer was a place or a person. Then I dozed, towake with a violent start and find the paper on the floor.Panic-stricken, I hid it away, and went on deck, when I found we wereclose to Norddeich, running up to the bleakest of bleak jettiesthrown out from the dyke-bound polders of the mainland. B?hme and Ilanded together, and he was at my elbow as I asked for a ticket forAmsterdam, and was given one as far as Rheine, a junction near theDutch frontier. He was ensconced in an opposite corner to me in therailway carriage, looking like an Indian idol. 'Where do you comein?' I pondered, dreamily. Too sleepy to talk, I could only blink athim, sitting bolt upright with my arms folded over my preciouspocket-book. Finally, I gave up the struggle, buttoned my ulstertightly up, and turning my back upon him with an apology, lay down tosleep, the precious pocket nethermost. He was at liberty to rifle mybag if he chose, and I dare say he did. I cannot say, for from thispoint till Rheine, for the best part of four hours, that is, I hadonly two lucid intervals.

  The first was at Emden, where we both had to change. Here, as wepushed our way down the crowded platform, B?hme, after being greetedrespectfully by several persons, was at last buttonholed withoutmeans of escape by an obsequious gentleman, whose description is ofno moment, but whose conversation is. It was about a canal; whatcanal I did not gather, though, from a name dropped, I afterwardsidentified it as one in course of construction as a feeder to theEms. The point is that the subject was canals. At the moment it wasseed dropped in unreceptive soil, but it germinated later. I passedon, mingling with the crowd, and was soon asleep again in anothercarriage where B?hme this time did not follow me.

  The second occasion was at Leer, where I heard myself called by name,and woke to find him at the window. He had to change trains, and hadcome to say good-bye. 'Don't forget to go to Lloyd's,' he grated inmy ear. I expect it was a wan smile that I returned, for I was at avery low ebb, and my fortress looked sarcastically impregnable. Butthe sapper was free; 'free' was my last conscious thought.

  Even after Rheine, where I changed for the last time, a brutishdrowsiness enchained me, and the afternoon was well advanced beforemy faculties began to revive.

  The train crept like a snail from station to station. I might, so afellow-passenger told me, have waited three hours at Rheine for anexpress which would have brought me to Amsterdam at about the sametime; or, if I had chosen to break the journey farther back, twohours at either Emden or Leer would still have enabled me to catchthe said express at Rheine. These alternatives had escaped Davies,and, I surmised, had been suppressed by B?hme, who doubtless did notwant me behind him, free either to double back or to follow him toBremen.

  The pace, then, was execrable, and there were delays; we were behindtime at Hengelo, thirty minutes late at Apeldoorn; so that I mightwell have grown nervous about my connexions at Amsterdam, which werein some jeopardy. But as I battled out of my lethargy and began totake account of our position and prospects, quite a different thoughtat the outset affected me. Anxiety to reach London was swamped inreluctance to quit Germany, so that I found myself grudging everymile that I placed between me and the frontier. It was the oldquestion of urgency. To-day was the 23rd. The visit to London meant aminimum absence of forty-eight hours, counting from Amsterdam; thatis to say, that by travelling for two nights and one day, anddevoting the other day to investigating Dollmann's past, it washumanly possible for me to be back on the Frisian coast on theevening of the 25th. Yes, I could be at Norden, if that was the'rendezvous', at 7 p.m. But what a scramble! No margin for delays, nophysical respite. Some pasts take a deal of raking up--other personsmay be affected; men are cautious, they trip you up with red tape; orthe man who knows is out at lunch--a protracted lunch; or in thecountry--a protracted week-end. Will you see Mr So-and-so, or leave anote? Oh! I know those public departments--from the inside! And theAdmiralty! ... I saw myself baffled and racing back the same night toGermany, with two days wasted, arriving, good for nothing, at Norden,with no leisure to reconnoitre my ground; to be baffled again there,probably, for you cannot always count on fogs (as Davies said). Esenswas another clue, and 'to follow Burmer'--there was something in thatnotion. But I wanted time, and had I time? How long could Daviesmaintain himself at Norderney? Not so very long, from what Iremembered of last night. And was he even safe there? A feverishdream recurred to me--a dream of Davies in a diving-dress; of aregrettable hitch in the air-supply--Stop, that was nonsense! ... Letus be sane. What matter if he had to go? What matter if I took mytime in London? Then with a fl
ood of shame I saw Davies's wistfulface on the quay, heard his grim ejaculation: 'He's our game or noone's'; and my own sullen 'Oh, I'll keep the secret!' London wasutterly impossible. If I found my informant, what credentials had I,what claim to confidences? None, unless I told the whole story. Why,my mere presence in Whitehall would imperil the secret; for, once onmy native heath, I should be recognized--possibly haled to judgement;at the best should escape in a cloud of rumour--'last heard of atNorderney'; 'only this morning was raising Cain at the Admiraltyabout a mythical lieutenant.' No! Back to Friesland, was the word.One night's rest--I must have that--between sheets, on a feather bed;one long, luxurious night, and then back refreshed to Friesland, tofinish our work in our own way, and with none but our own weapons.

  Having reached this resolve, I was nearly putting it into instantexecution, by alighting at Amersfoort, but thought better of it. Ihad a transformation to effect before I returned north, and the morepopulous centre I made it in the less it was likely to attractnotice. Besides, I had in my mind's eye a perfect bed in a perfecthostelry hard by the Amstel River. It was an economy in the end.

  So, at half-past eight I was sipping my coffee in the aforesaidhostelry, with a London newspaper before me, which was unusuallyinteresting, and some German journals, which, 'in hate of a wrong nottheirs', were one and all seething with rancorous Anglophobia. Atnine I was in the Jewish quarter, striking bargains in an infamousmarine slop-shop. At half-past nine I was despatching thisunscrupulous telegram to my chief--'Very sorry, could not callNorderney; hope extension all right; please write to H?tel du Louvre,Paris.' At ten I was in the perfect bed, rapturously flinging mylimbs abroad in its glorious redundancies. And at 8.28 on thefollowing morning, with a novel chilliness about the upper lip, and avast excess of strength and spirits, I was sitting in a third-classcarriage, bound for Germany, and dressed as a young seaman, in apea-jacket, peaked cap, and comforter.

  The transition had not been difficult. I had shaved off my moustacheand breakfasted hastily in my bedroom, ready equipped for a journeyin my ulster and cloth cap. I had dismissed the hotel porter at thestation, and left my bag at the cloak-room, after taking out of it anumber bundle and substituting the ulster. The umber bundle, whichconsisted of my oilskins, and within them my sea-boots and a fewother garments and necessaries, the whole tied up with a length oftarry rope, was now in the rack above me, and (with a stout stick)represented my luggage. Every article in it--I shudder at theirorigin--was in strict keeping with my humble _m?tier,_ for I knewthey were liable to search at the frontier Custom-house; but therewas a Baedeker of Northern Germany in my jacket pocket.

  For the nonce, if questions were asked, I was an English seaman,going to Emden to join a ship, with a ticket as far as the frontier.Beyond that a definite scheme of action had still to be thought out.One thing, however, was sure. I was determined to be at Nordento-morrow night, the 25th. A word about Norden, which is a small townseven miles south of Norddeich. When hurriedly scanning the map forcoast stations in the cabin yesterday, I had not thought of Norden,because it did not appear to be on the coast, but Davies had noticedit while I slept, and I now saw that his pencilled hint was a shrewdone. The creek he spoke of, though barely visible on the map, _[seeMap B]_ flowed into the Ems Estuary in a south-westerly direction.The 'night train' tallied to perfection, for high tide in the creekwould be, as Davies estimated, between 10.30 and 11 p.m. on the nightof the 25th; and the time-table showed that the only night trainarriving at Norden was one from the south at 10.46 p.m. This lookedpromising. Emden, which I had inclined to on the spur of the moment,was out of court in comparison, for many reasons; not the least beingthat it was served by three trains between 9 p.m. and 1 a.m., so thatthe phrase 'night train' would be ambiguous and not decisive as withNorden.

  So far good; but how was I to spend the intervening time? Should Iact on Davies's 'querry' and go to Bremen after B?hme? I soondismissed that idea. It was one to act upon if others failed; for thepresent it meant another scramble. Bremen is six hours from Norden byrail. I should spend a disproportionate amount of my limited time intrains, and I should want a different disguise. Besides, I hadalready learnt something fresh about B?hme; for the seed dropped atEmden Station yesterday had come to life. A submarine engineer I knewhim to be before; I now knew that canals were another branch of hislabours--not a very illuminating fact; but could I pick up more in asingle day?

  There remained Esens, and it was thither I resolved to go to-night--atedious journey, lasting till past eight in the evening; but there Ishould only be an hour from Norden by rail.

  And at Esens?

  All day long I strove for light on the central mystery, collectingfrom my diary, my memory, my imagination, from the map, thetime-table, and Davies's grubby jottings, every elusive atom ofmaterial. Sometimes I issued from a reverie with a start, to find aphlegmatic Dutch peasant staring strangely at me over his china pipe.I was more careful over the German border. Davies's paper I soon knewby heart. I pictured him writing it with his cramped fist in hiscorner by the stove, fighting against sleep, absently striking salvosof matches, while I snored in my bunk; absently diverging intodreams, I knew, of a rose-brown face under dewy hair and a greytam-o'-shanter; though not a word of her came into the document. Ismiled to see his undying faith in the 'channel theory' reconciled atthe eleventh hour, with new data touching the neglected 'land'.

  The result was certainly interesting, but it left me cold. That thereexisted in the German archives some such scheme of defence for theNorth Sea coast was very likely indeed. The seven islands, with theirseven shallow channels (though, by the way, two of them, the twinbranches of the Ems, are by no means so shallow), were a very fairconjecture, and fitted in admirably with the channel theory, whoseintrinsic merits I had always recognized; my constant objectionhaving been that it did not go nearly far enough to account for ourtreatment. The ring of railway round the peninsula, with Esens at theapex, was suggestive, too; but the same objection applied. Everycountry with a maritime frontier has, I suppose, secret plans ofmobilization for its defence, but they are not such as could bediscovered by passing travellers, not such as would warrant stealthysearches, or require for their elaboration so recondite ameeting-place as Memmert. Dollmann was another weak point; Dollmannin England, spying. All countries, Germany included, have spies intheir service, dirty though necessary tools; but Dollmann in suchintimate association with the principal plotters on this side;Dollmann rich, influential, a power in local affairs--it was clear hewas no ordinary spy.

  And here I detected a hesitation in Davies's rough sketch, areluctance, as it were, to pursue a clue to its logical end. He spokeof a German scheme of coast defence, and in the next breath ofDollmann spying for English plans in the event of war with Germany,and there he left the matter; but what sort of plans? Obviously (ifhe was on the right track) plans of attack on the German coast asopposed to those of strategy on the high seas. But what sort of anattack? Obviously again, if his railway-ring meant anything, anattack by invasion on that remote and desolate littoral which he hadso often himself declared to be impregnably secure behind its web ofsands and shallows. My mind went back to my question at Bensersiel,'Can this coast be invaded?' to his denial and our fruitless surveyof the dykes and polders. Was he now reverting to a fancy we had bothrejected, while shrinking from giving it explicit utterance? Thedoubt was tantalizing.

  A brief digression here about the phases of my journey. At Rheine Ichanged trains, turned due north and became a German seaman. Therewas little risk in a defective accent--sailors are so polyglot; whilean English sailor straying about Esens might excite curiosity.Yesterday I had paid no heed to the landscape; to-day I neglectednothing that could conceivably supply a hint.

  From Rheine to Emden we descended the valley of the Ems; at firstthrough a land of thriving towns and fat pastures, degeneratingfarther north to spaces of heathery bog and moorland--a sad country,but looking at its best, such as that was, for I should mention herethat the weather, which in
the early morning had been as cold andmisty as ever, grew steadily milder and brighter as the day advanced;while my newspaper stated that the glass was falling and theanticyclone giving way to pressure from the Atlantic.

  At Emden, where we entered Friesland proper, the train crossed a bigcanal, and for the twentieth time that day (for we had passed numbersof them in Holland, and not a few in Germany), I said to myself,'Canals, canals. Where does B?hme come in?' It was dusk, but lightenough to see an unfamiliar craft, a torpedo-boat in fact, moored tostakes at one side. In a moment I remembered that page in the _NorthSea Pilot_ where the Ems-Jade Canal is referred to as deep enough tocarry gun-boats, and as used for that strategic purpose betweenWilhelmshaven and Emden, along the base, that is, of the Frisianpeninsula. I asked a peasant opposite; yes, that was the Ems-JadeCanal. Had Davies forgotten it? It would have greatly strengthenedhis halting sketch.

  At the bookstall at Emden I bought a pocket ordnance map [There is,of course, no space to reproduce this, but here and henceforward thereader is referred to Map B.] of Friesland, on a much larger scalethan anything I had used before, and when I was unobserved studiedthe course of the canal, with an impatience which, alas! quicklycooled. From Emden northwards I used the same map to aid my eyesight,and with its help saw in the gathering gloom more heaths and bogs,once a great glimmering lake, and at intervals cultivated tracts; awatery land as ever; pools, streams and countless drains and ditches.Extensive woods were marked also, but farther inland. We passedNorden at seven, just dark. I looked out for the creek, and sureenough, we crossed it just before entering the station. Its bed wasnearly dry, and I distinguished barges lying aground in it. Thisbeing the junction for Esens, I had to wait three-quarters of anhour, and then turned east through the uttermost northern wilds,stopping at occasional village stations and keeping five or six milesfrom the sea. It was during this stage, in a wretchedly litcompartment, and alone for the most part, that I finally assembledall my threads and tried to weave them into a cable whose core shouldbe Esens; 'a town', so Baedeker said, 'of 3,500 inhabitants, thecentre of a rich agricultural district. Fine spire.'

  Esens is four miles inland from Bensersiel. I reviewed everycircumstance of that day at Bensersiel, and boiled to think how vonBr?ning had tricked me. He had driven to Esens himself, and read meso well that he actually offered to take me with him, and I hadrefused from excess of cleverness. Stay, though; if I had happened toaccept he would have taken very good care that I saw nothingimportant. The secret, therefore, was not writ large on the walls ofEsens. Was it connected with Bensersiel too, or the country between?I searched the ordnance map again, standing up to get a better lightand less jolting. There was the road northwards from Esens toBensersiel, passing through dots and chess-board squares, the formermeaning fen, the latter fields, so the reference said. Somethingelse, too, immediately caught my eye, and that was a stream runningto Bensersiel. I knew it at once for the muddy stream or drain we hadseen at the harbour, issuing through the sluice or _siel_ from whichBensersiel took its name. But it arrested my attention now because itlooked more prominent than I should have expected. Charts are apt toignore the geography of the mainland, except in so far as it offerssea-marks to mariners. On the chart this stream had been shown as arough little corkscrew, like a sucking-pig's tail. On the ordnancemap it was marked with a dark blue line, was labelled 'Benser Tief',and was given a more resolute course; bends became angles, and therewere what appeared to be artificial straightnesses at certain points.One of the threads in my skein, the canal thread, tingledsympathetically, like a wire charged with current. Standing astraddleon both seats, with the map close to the lamp, I greedily followedthe course of the 'tief' southward. It inclined away from the road toEsens and passed the town about a mile to the west, diving underneaththe railway. Soon after it took angular tacks to the eastward, andjoined another blue line trending south-east, and lettered'Esens--Wittmunder _Canal_.' This canal, however, came to an abruptend halfway to Wittmund, a neighbouring town.

  For the first time that day there came to me a sense of genuineinspiration. Those shallow depths and short distances, fractions ofmetres and kilometres, which I had overheard from B?hme's lips atMemmert, and which Davies had attributed to the outside channels--didthey refer to a canal? I remembered seeing barges in Bensersielharbour. I remembered conversations with the natives in the inn,scraps of the post-master's pompous loquacity, talks of growingtrade, of bricks and grain passing from the interior to the islands:from another source--was it the grocer of Wangeroog?--of expansion ofbusiness in the islands themselves as bathing resorts; from anothersource again--von Br?ning himself, surely--of Dollmann's personalactivity in the development of the islands. In obscure connexion withthese things, I saw the torpedo-boat in the Ems-Jade Canal.

  It was between Dornum and Esens that these ideas came, and I wasstill absorbed in them when the train drew up, just upon nineo'clock, at my destination, and after ten minutes' walk, along with ahandful of other passengers, I found myself in the quiet cobbledstreets of Esens, with the great church steeple, that we had so oftenseen from the sea, soaring above me in the moonlight.