The Riddle of the Sands (Spy Thriller). Erskine Childers

Zuyder Zee, and the rest border the Dutch and German coasts.’ (See Map A)

      ‘What’s all this?’ I said, running my finger over some dotted patches which covered much of the chart. The latter was becoming unintelligible; clean-cut coasts and neat regiments of little figures had given place to a confusion of winding and intersecting lines and bald spaces.

      ‘All sand,’ said Davies, enthusiastically. ‘You can’t think what a splendid sailing-ground it is. You can explore for days without seeing a soul. These are the channels, you see; they’re very badly charted. This chart was almost useless, but it made it all the more fun. No towns or harbours, just a village or two on the islands, if you wanted stores.’

      ‘They look rather desolate,’ I said.

      ‘Desolate’s no word for it; they’re really only gigantic sand-banks themselves.’

      ‘Wasn’t all this rather dangerous?’ I asked.

      ‘Not a bit; you see, that’s where our shallow draught and flat bottom came in-we could go anywhere, and it didn’t matter running aground — she’s perfect for that sort of work; and she doesn’t really look bad either, does she?’ he asked, rather wistfully. I suppose I hesitated, for he said, abruptly:

      ‘Anyway, I don’t go in for looks.’

      He had leaned back, and I detected traces of incipient absentmindedness. His cigar, which he had lately been lighting and relighting feverishly — a habit of his when excited — seemed now to have expired for good.

      ‘About running aground,’ I persisted; ‘surely that’s apt to be dangerous?’

      He sat up and felt round for a match.

      ‘Not the least, if you know where you can run risks and where you can’t; anyway, you can’t possibly help it. That chart may look simple to you’—(‘simple!’ I thought)—‘but at half flood all those banks are covered; the islands and coasts are scarcely visible, they are so low, and everything looks the same.’ This graphic description of a ‘splendid cruising-ground’ took away my breath. ‘Of course there is risk sometimes — choosing an anchorage requires care. You can generally get a nice berth under the lee of a bank, but the tides run strong in the channels, and if there’s a gale blowing —’

      “Didn’t you ever take a pilot?’ I interrupted.

      ‘Pilot? Why, the whole point of the thing’— he stopped short —‘I did take one once, later on,’ he resumed, with an odd smile, which faded at once.

      ‘Well?’ I urged, for I saw a reverie was coming.

      ‘Oh! he ran me ashore, of course. Served me right. I wonder what the weather’s doing’; he rose, glanced at the aneroid, the clock, and the half-closed skylight with a curious circular movement, and went a step or two up the companion-ladder, where he remained for several minutes with head and shoulders in the open air.

      There was no sound of wind outside, but the Dulcibella had begun to move in her sleep, as it were, rolling drowsily to some taint send of the sea, with an occasional short jump, like the start of an uneasy dreamer.

      ‘What does it look like?’ I called from my sofa. I had to repeat the question.

      ‘Rain coming,’ said Davies, returning, ‘and possibly wind; but we’re safe enough here. It’s coming from the sou’-west; shall we turn in?’

      ‘We haven’t finished your cruise yet,’ I said. ‘Light a pipe and tell me the rest.’

      ‘All right,’ he agreed, with more readiness than I expected.

      ‘After Terschelling — here it is, the third island from the west — I pottered along eastward.’ (See Map A)

      ‘I?’

      ‘Oh! I forgot. Morrison had to leave me there. I missed him badly. but I hoped at that time to get — to join me. I could manage all right single-handed, but for that sort of work two are much better than one. The plate’s beastly heavy; in fact, I had to give up using it for fear of a smash.’

      ‘After Terschelling?’ I jogged his memory.

      ‘Well, I followed the Dutch islands, Ameland, Schiermonnikoog, Rottum (outlandish names, aren’t they?), sometimes outside them, sometimes inside. It was a bit lonely, but grand sport and very interesting. The charts were shocking, but I worried out most of the channels.’

      ‘I suppose those waters are only used by small local craft?’ I put in; that would account for inaccuracies.’ Did Davies think that Admiralties had time to waste on smoothing the road for such quixotic little craft as his, in all its inquisitive ramblings? But he fired up.

      ‘That’s all very well,’ he said, ‘but think what folly it is. However, that’s a long story, and will bore you. To cut matters short, for we ought to be turning in, I got to Borkum — that’s the first of the German islands.’ He pointed at a round bare lozenge lying in the midst of a welter of sandbanks. ‘Rottum — this queer little one — it has only one house on it — is the most easterly Dutch island, and the mainland of Holland ends here, opposite it, at the Ems River’— indicating a dismal cavity in the coast, sown with names suggestive of mud, and wrecks, and dreariness.

      ‘What date was this?’ I asked.

      ‘About the ninth of this month.’

      ‘Why, that’s only a fortnight before you wired to me! You were pretty quick getting to Flensburg. Wait a bit, we want another chart. Is this the next?’

      ‘Yes; but we scarcely need it. I only went a little way farther on — to Norderney, in fact, the third German island — then I decided to go straight for the Baltic. I had always had an idea of getting there, as Knight did in the Falcon. So I made a passage of it to the Eider River, there on the West Schleswig coast, took the river and canal through to Kiel on the Baltic, and from there made another passage up north to Flensburg. I was a week there, and then you came, and here we are. And now let’s turn in. We’ll have a fine sail tomorrow!’ He ended with rather forced vivacity, and briskly rolled up the chart. The reluctance he had shown from the first to talk about his cruise had been for a brief space forgotten in his enthusiasm about a portion of it, but had returned markedly in this bald conclusion. I felt sure that there was more in it than mere disinclination to spin nautical yarns in the ‘hardy Corinthian’ style, which can be so offensive in amateur yachtsmen; and I thought I guessed the explanation. His voyage single-handed to the Baltic from the Frisian Islands had been a foolhardy enterprise, with perilous incidents, which, rather than make light of, he would not refer to at all. Probably he was ashamed of his recklessness and wished to ignore it with me, an inexperienced acquaintance not yet enamoured of the Dulcibella’s way of life, whom both courtesy and interest demanded that he should inspire with confidence. I liked him all the better as I came to this conclusion, but I was tempted to persist a little.

      ‘I slept the whole afternoon,’ I said; ‘and, to tell the truth, I rather dread the idea of going to bed, it’s so tiring. Look here, you’ve rushed over that last part like an express train. That passage to the Schleswig coast — the Eider River, did you say? — was a longish one, wasn’t it?’

      ‘Well, you see what it was; about seventy miles, I suppose, direct.’ He spoke low, bending down to sweep up some cigar ashes on the floor.

      ‘Direct?’ I insinuated. ‘Then you put in somewhere?’

      ‘I stopped once, anchored for the night; oh, that’s nothing of a sail with a fair wind. By Jove! I’ve forgotten to caulk that seam over your bunk, and it’s going to rain. I must do it now. You turn in.’

      He disappeared. My curiosity, never very consuming, was banished by concern as to the open seam; for the prospect of a big drop, remorseless and regular as Fate, falling on my forehead throughout the night, as in the torture-chamber of the Inquisition, was alarming enough to recall me wholly to the immediate future. So I went to bed, finding on the whole that I had made progress