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

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СКАЧАТЬ ‘I was just asking your friend how it was you made his acquaintance.’

      ‘Oh, he helped me out of a bit of a mess in the North Sea, didn’t you, Bartels?’ he said.

      ‘It was nothing,’ said Bartels. ‘But the North Sea is no place for your little boat, captain. So I have told you many times. How did you like Flensburg? A fine town, is it not? Did you find Herr Krank, the carpenter? I see you have placed a little mizzen-mast. The rudder was nothing much, but it was well that it held to the Eider. But she is strong and good, your little ship, and — Heaven! — she had need be so.’ He chuckled, and shook his head at Davies as at a wayward child.

      This is all the conversation that I need record. For my part I merely waited for its end, determined on my course, which was to know the truth once and for all, and make an end of these distracting mystifications. Davies plied his friend with coffee, and kept up the talk gallantly; but affectionate as he was, his manner plainly showed that he wanted to be alone with me.

      The gist of the little skipper’s talk was a parental warning that, though we were well enough here in the ‘Ost–See’, it was time for little boats to be looking for winter quarters. That he himself was going by the Kiel Canal to Hamburg to spend a cosy winter as a decent citizen at his warm fireside, and that we should follow his example. He ended with an invitation to us to visit him on the Johannes, and with suave farewells disappeared into the fog. Davies saw him into his boat, returned without wasting a moment, and sat down on the sofa opposite me.

      ‘What did he mean?’ I asked.

      ‘I’ll tell you,’ said Davies, ‘I’ll tell you the whole thing. As far as you’re concerned it’s partly a confession. Last night I had made up my mind to say nothing, but when Bartels turned up I knew it must all come out. It’s been fearfully on my mind, and perhaps you’ll be able to help me. But it’s for you to decide.’

      ‘Fire away!’ I said.

      ‘You know what I was saying about the Frisian Islands the other day? A thing happened there which I never told you, when you were asking about my cruise.’

      ‘It began near Norderney,’ I put in.

      ‘How did you guess that?’ he asked.

      ‘You’re a bad hand at duplicity,’ I replied. ‘Go on.’

      ‘Well, you’re quite right, it was there, on 9th September. I told you the sort of thing I was doing at that time, but I don’t think I said that I made inquiries from one or two people about duck-shooting, and had been told by some fishermen at Borkum that there was a big sailing-yacht in those waters, whose owner, a German of the name of Dollmann, shot a good deal, and might give me some tips. Well, I found this yacht one evening, knowing it must be her from the description I had. She was what is called a “barge-yacht”, of fifty or sixty tons, built for shallow water on the lines of a Dutch galliot, with lee-boards and those queer round bows and square stern. She’s something like those galliots anchored near us now. You sometimes see the same sort of yacht in English waters, only there they copy the Thames barges. She looked a clipper of her sort, and very smart; varnished all over and shining like gold. I came on her about sunset, after a long day of exploring round the Ems estuary. She was lying in-’

      ‘Wait a bit, let’s have the chart,’ I interrupted.

      Davies found it and spread it on the table between us, first pushing back the cloth and the breakfast things to one end, where they lay in a slovenly litter. This was one of the only two occasions on which I ever saw him postpone the rite of washing up, and it spoke volumes for the urgency of the matter in hand.

      ‘Here it is,’ said Davies (See Map A) and I looked with a new and strange interest at the long string of slender islands, the parallel line of coast, and the confusion of shoals, banks, and channels which lay between. ‘Here’s Norderney, you see. By the way, there’s a harbour there at the west end of the island, the only real harbour on the whole line of islands, Dutch or German, except at Terschelling. There’s quite a big town there, too, a watering place, where Germans go for sea-bathing in the summer. Well, the Medusa, that was her name, was lying in the Riff Gat roadstead, flying the German ensign, and I anchored for the night pretty near her. I meant to visit her owner later on, but I very nearly changed my mind, as I always feel rather a fool on smart yachts, and my German isn’t very good. However, I thought I might as well; so, after dinner, when it was dark, I sculled over in the dinghy, hailed a sailor on deck, said who I was, and asked if I could see the owner. The sailor was a surly sort of chap, and there was a good long delay while I waited on deck, feeling more and more uncomfortable. Presently a steward came up and showed me down the companion and into the saloon, which, after this, looked — well, horribly gorgeous — you know what I mean, plush lounges, silk cushions, and that sort of thing. Dinner seemed to be just over, and wine and fruit were on the table. Herr Dollmann was there at his coffee. I introduced myself somehow —’

      ‘Stop a moment,’ I said; ‘what was he like?’

      ‘Oh, a tall, thin chap, in evening dress; about fifty I suppose, with greyish hair and a short beard. I’m not good at describing people. He had a high, bulging forehead, and there was something about him — but I think I’d better tell you the bare facts first. I can’t say he seemed pleased to see me, and he couldn’t speak English, and, in fact, I felt infernally awkward. Still, I had an object in coming, and as I was there I thought I might as well gain it.’

      The notion of Davies in his Norfolk jacket and rusty flannels haranguing a frigid German in evening dress in a ‘gorgeous’ saloon tickled my fancy greatly.

      ‘He seemed very much astonished to see me; had evidently seen the Dulcibella arrive, and had wondered what she was. I began as soon as I could about the ducks, but he shut me up at once, said I could do nothing hereabouts. I put it down to sportsman’s jealousy — you know what that is. But I saw I had come to the wrong shop, and was just going to back out and end this unpleasant interview, when he thawed a bit, offered me some wine, and began talking in quite a friendly way, taking a great interest in my cruise and my plans for the future. In the end we sat up quite late, though I never felt really at my ease. He seemed to be taking stock of me all the time, as though I were some new animal.’ (How I sympathized with that German!) ‘We parted civilly enough, and I rowed back and turned in, meaning to potter on eastwards early next day.

      ‘But I was knocked up at dawn by a sailor with a message from Dollmann asking if he could come to breakfast with me. I was rather flabbergasted, but didn’t like to be rude, so I said, “Yes.” Well, he came, and I returned the call — and — well, the end of it was that I stayed at anchor there for three days.’ This was rather abrupt.

      ‘How did you spend the time?’ I asked. Stopping three days anywhere was an unusual event for him, as I knew from his log.

      ‘Oh, I lunched or dined with him once or twice — with them, I ought to say,’ he added, hurriedly. ‘His daughter was with him. She didn’t appear the evening I first called.’

      ‘And what was she like?’ I asked, promptly, before he could hurry on.

      ‘Oh, she seemed a very nice girl,’ was the guarded reply, delivered with particular unconcern, ‘and — the end of it was that I and the Medusa sailed away in company. I must tell you how it came about, just in a few words for the present.

      ‘It was his suggestion. He said he had to sail to Hamburg, and proposed that I should go with him in the Dulcibella as far as the Elbe, and then, if I liked, I could take the ship canal at Brunsbüttel through to Kiel and the Baltic. I had no very fixed plans of my own, though I СКАЧАТЬ