CHAPTER XI.

The Pathfinders

In the late afternoon of the second day our flotilla reached the Elbe

at Brunsbüttel and ranged up in the inner basin, while a big liner,

whimpering like a fretful baby, was tenderly nursed into the lock.

During the delay Davies left me in charge, and bolted off with an

oil-can and a milk-jug. An official in uniform was passing along the

quay from vessel to vessel countersigning papers. I went up to meet him

with our receipt for dues, which he signed carelessly. Then he paused

and muttered _“Dooltzhibella,”_ scratching his head, “that was the

name. English?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Little _lust-cutter_, that is so; there was an inquiry for you.”

“Whom from?”

“A friend of yours from a big barge-yacht.”

“Oh, I know; she went on to Hamburg, I suppose?”

“No such luck, captain; she was outward bound.”

What did the man mean? He seemed to be vastly amused by something.

“When was this—about three weeks ago?” I asked, indifferently.

“Three weeks? It was the day before yesterday. What a pity to miss him

by so little!” He chuckled and winked.

“Did he leave any message?” I asked.

“It was a lady who inquired,” whispered the fellow, sniggering. “Oh,

really,” I said, beginning to feel highly absurd, but keenly curious.

“And she inquired about the _Dulcibella_?”

“Herrgott! she was difficult to satisfy! Stood over me while I searched

the books. ‘A very little one,’ she kept saying, and ‘Are you sure all

the names are here?’ I saw her into her kleine Boot, and she rowed away

in the rain. No, she left no message. It was dirty weather for a young

Fräulein to be out alone in. Ach! she was safe enough, though. To see

her crossing the ebb in a chop of tide was a treat.”

“And the yacht went on down the river? Where was she bound to?”

“How do I know? Bremen, Wilhelmshaven, Emden—somewhere in the North

Sea; too far for you.”

“I don’t know about that,” said I, bravely.

“Ach! you will not follow in _that_? Are not you bound to Hamburg?”

“We can change our plans. It seems a pity to have missed them.”

“Think twice, captain, there are plenty of pretty girls in Hamburg. But

you English will do anything. Well, viel Glück!”

He moved on, chuckling, to the next boat. Davies soon returned with his

cans and an armful of dark, rye loaves, just in time, for, the liner

being through, the flotilla was already beginning to jostle into the

lock and Bartels was growing impatient.

“They’ll last ten days,” he said, as we followed the throng, still

clinging like a barnacle to the side of the _Johannes_. We spent the

few minutes while the lock was emptied in a farewell talk to Bartels.

Karl had hitched their main halyards on to the windlass and was

grinding at it in an _acharnement_ of industry, his shock head jerking

and his grubby face perspiring. Then the lock-gates opened; and so, in

a Babel of shouting, whining of blocks, and creaking of spars, our

whole company was split out into the dingy bosom of the Elbe. The

_Johannes_ gathered way under wind and tide and headed for midstream. A

last shake of the hand, and Bartels reluctantly slipped the head-rope

and we drifted apart. “Gute Reise! Gute Reise!” It was no time for

regretful gazing, for the flood-tide was sweeping us up and out, and it

was not until we had set the foresail, edged into a shallow bight, and

let go our anchor, that we had leisure to think of him again; but by

that time his and the other craft were shades in the murky east.

We swung close to a _glacis_ of smooth blue mud which sloped up to a

weed-grown dyke; behind lay the same flat country, colourless, humid;

and opposite us, two miles away, scarcely visible in the deepening

twilight, ran the outline of a similar shore. Between rolled the turgid

Elbe. “The Styx flowing through Tartarus,” I thought to myself,

recalling some of our Baltic anchorages.

I told my news to Davies as soon as the anchor was down, instinctively

leaving the sex of the inquirer to the last, as my informant had done.

“The _Medusa_ called yesterday?” he interrupted. “And outward bound?

That’s a rum thing. Why didn’t he inquire when he was going _up_?”

“It was a lady,” and I drily retailed the official’s story, very busy

with a deck-broom the while. “We’re all square now, aren’t we?” I

ended. “I’ll go below and light the stove.”

Davies had been engaged in fixing up the riding-light. When I last saw

him he was still so engaged, but motionless, the lantern under his left

arm and his right hand grasping the forestay and the half-knotted

lanyard; his eyes staring fixedly down the river, a strange look in his

face, half exultant, half perplexed. When he joined me and spoke he

seemed to be concluding a difficult argument.

“Anyway, it proves,” he said, “that the _Medusa_ has gone back to

Norderney. That’s the main thing.”

“Probably,” I agreed, “but let’s sum up all we know. First, it’s

certain that nobody we’ve met as yet has any suspicion of _us_——”

“I told you he did it off his own bat,” threw in Davies.

“Or, secondly, of _him._ If he’s what you think it’s not known here.”

“I can’t help that.”

“Thirdly, he inquires for you on his way _back_ from Hamburg, three

weeks after the event. It doesn’t look as if he thought he had disposed

of you—it doesn’t look as if he had _meant_ to dispose of you. He sends

his daughter, too; a curious proceeding under the circumstances.

Perhaps it’s all a mistake.”

“It’s not a mistake,” said Davies, half to himself. “But _did_ he send

her? He’d have sent one of his men. He can’t be on board at all.”

This was a new light.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“He must have left the yacht when he got to Hamburg; some other devil’s

work, I suppose. She’s being sailed back now, and passing here——”

“Oh, I see! It’s a private supplementary inquiry.”

“That’s a long name to call it.”

“Would the girl sail back alone with the crew?”

“She’s used to the sea—and perhaps she isn’t alone. There was that

stepmother—— But it doesn’t make a ha’porth of difference to our plans;

we’ll start on the ebb to-morrow morning.”

We were busier than usual that night, reckoning stores, tidying

lockers, and securing movables. “We must economise,” said Davies, for

all the world as though we were castaways on a raft. “It’s a wretched

thing to have to land somewhere to buy oil,” was a favourite

observation of his.

Before getting to sleep I was made to recognise a new factor in the

conditions of navigation, now that the tideless Baltic was left behind

us. A strong current was sluicing past our sides, and at the eleventh

hour I was turned out, clad in pyjamas and oilskins (a horrible

combination), to assist in running out a kedge or spare anchor.

“What’s kedging-off?” I asked, when we were tucked up again. “Oh, it’s

when you run aground; you have to—but you’ll soon learn all about it.”

I steeled my heart for the morrow.

So behold us, then, at eight o’clock on October 5, standing down the

river towards the field of our first labours. It is fifteen miles to

the mouth; drab, dreary miles like the dullest reaches of the lower

Thames; but scenery was of no concern to us, and a south-westerly

breeze blowing out of a grey sky kept us constantly on the verge of

reefing. The tide as it gathered strength swept us down with a force

attested by the speed with which buoys came in sight, nodded above us

and passed, each boiling in its eddy of dirty foam. I scarcely noticed

at first—so calm was the water, and so regular were the buoys, like

milestones along a road—that the northern line of coast was rapidly

receding and that the “river” was coming to be but a belt of deep water

skirting a vast estuary, three—seven—ten miles broad, till it merged in

open sea.

“Why, we’re at sea!” I suddenly exclaimed, “after an hour’s sailing!”

“Just discovered that?” said Davies, laughing.

“You said it was fifteen miles,” I complained.

“So it is, till we reach this coast at Cuxhaven; but I suppose you may

say we’re at sea; of course that’s all sand over there to starboard.

Look! some of it’s showing already.”

He pointed into the north. Looking more attentively I noticed that

outside the line of buoys patches of the surface heaved and worked; in

one or two places streaks and circles of white were forming; in the

midst of one such circle a sleek mauve hump had risen, like the back of

a sleeping whale. I saw that an old spell was enthralling Davies as his

eye travelled away to the blank horizon. He scanned it all with a

critical eagerness, too, as one who looks for a new meaning in an old

friend’s face. Something of his zest was communicated to me, and

stilled the shuddering thrill that had seized me. The protecting land

was still a comforting neighbour; but our severance with it came

quickly. The tide whirled us down, and our straining canvas aiding it,

we were soon off Cuxhaven, which crouched so low behind its mighty

dyke, that of some of its houses only the chimneys were visible. Then,

a mile or so on, the shore sharpened to a point like a claw, where the

innocent dyke became a long, low fort, with some great guns peeping

over; then of a sudden it ceased, retreating into the far south in a

dim perspective of groins and dunes.

We spun out into the open and leant heavily over to the now

unobstructed wind. The yacht rose and sank to a little swell, but my

first impression was one of wonder at the calmness of the sea, for the

wind blew fresh and free from horizon to horizon.

“Why, it’s all sand _there_ now, and we’re under the lee of it,” said

Davies, with an enthusiastic sweep of his hand over the sea on our left

or port hand. “That’s our hunting ground.”

“What are we going to do?” I inquired.

“Pick up Sticker’s Gat,” was the reply. “It ought to be near Buoy K.”

A red buoy with a huge K on it soon came into view. Davies peered over

to port.

“Just pull up the centreboard, will you?” he remarked abstractedly,

adding, “and hand me up the glasses as you are down there.”

“Never mind the glasses. I’ve got it now; come to the main-sheet,” was

the next remark.

He put down the helm and headed the yacht straight for the troubled and

discoloured expanse which covered the submerged sands. A “sleeping

whale”, with a light surf splashing on it, was right in our path.

“Stand by the lead, will you?” said Davies, politely. “I’ll manage the

sheets, it’s a dead beat in. Ready about!”

The wind was in our teeth now, and for a crowded half-hour we wormed

ourselves forward by ever-shortening tacks into the sinuous recesses of

a channel which threaded the shallows westward. I knelt in a tangle of

line, and, under the hazy impression that something very critical was

going on, plied the lead furiously, bumping and splashing myself, and

shouting out the depths, which lessened steadily, with a great sense of

the importance of my function. Davies never seemed to listen, but

tacked on imperturbably, juggling with the tiller, the sheets, and the

chart, in a way that made one giddy to look at. For all our zeal we

seemed to be making very slow progress.

“It’s no use, tide’s too strong; we must chance it,” he said at last.

“Chance what?” I wondered to myself. Our tacks suddenly began to grow

longer, and the depths, which I registered, shallower. All went well

for some time though, and we made better progress. Then came a longer

reach than usual.

“Two and a half—two—one and a half—one—only five feet,” I gasped,

reproachfully. The water was growing thick and frothy.

“It doesn’t matter if we do,” said Davies, thinking aloud. “There’s an

eddy here, and it’s a pity to waste it—ready about! Back the jib!”

But it was too late. The yacht answered but faintly to the helm,

stopped, and heeled heavily over, wallowing and grinding. Davies had

the mainsail down in a twinkling; it half smothered me as I crouched on

the lee-side among my tangled skeins of line, scared and helpless. I

crawled out from the folds, and saw him standing by the mast in a

reverie.

“It’s not much use,” he said, “on a falling tide, but we’ll try

kedging-off. Pay that warp out while I run out the kedge.”

Like lightning he had cast off the dinghy’s painter, tumbled the

kedge-anchor and himself into the dinghy, pulled out fifty yards into

the deeper water, and heaved out the anchor.

“Now haul,” he shouted.

I hauled, beginning to see what kedging-off meant.

“Steady on! Don’t sweat yourself,” said Davies, jumping aboard again.

“It’s coming,” I spluttered, triumphantly.

“The warp is, the yacht isn’t; you’re dragging the anchor home. Never

mind, she’ll lie well here. Let’s have lunch.”

The yacht was motionless, and the water round her visibly lower.

Petulant waves slapped against her sides, but, scattered as my senses

were, I realised that there was no vestige of danger. Round us the

whole face of the waters was changing from moment to moment, whitening

in some places, yellowing in others, where breadths of sand began to be

exposed. Close on our right the channel we had left began to look like

a turbid little river; and I understood why our progress had been so

slow when I saw its current racing back to meet the Elbe. Davies was

already below, laying out a more than usually elaborate lunch, in high

content of mind.

“Lies quiet, doesn’t she?” he remarked. “If you _do_ want a sit-down

lunch, there’s nothing like running aground for it. And, anyhow, we’re

as handy for work here as anywhere else. You’ll see.”

Like most landsmen I had a wholesome prejudice against running aground,

so that my mentor’s turn for breezy paradox was at first rather

exasperating. After lunch the large-scale chart of the estuaries was

brought down, and we pored over it together, mapping out work for the

next few days. There is no need to tire the general reader with its

intricacies, nor is there space to reproduce it for the benefit of the

instructed reader. For both classes the general map should be

sufficient, taken with the large-scale fragment _[See Chart A]_ which

gives a fair example of the region in detail. It will be seen that the

three broad fairways of the Jade, Weser, and Elbe split up the sands

into two main groups. The westernmost of these is symmetrical in

outline, an acute-angled triangle, very like a sharp steel-shod pike,

if you imagine the peninsula from which it springs to be the wooden

haft. The other is a huge congeries of banks, its base resting on the

Hanover coast, two of its sides tolerably clean and even, and the

third, that facing the north-west, ribboned and lacerated by the fury

of the sea, which has eaten out deep cavities and struck hungry

tentacles far into the interior. The whole resembles an inverted E, or,

better still, a rude fork, on whose three deadly prongs, the Scharhorn

Reef, the Knecht Sand, and the Tegeler Flat, as on the no less deadly

point of the pike, many a good ship splinters herself in northerly

gales. Following this simile, the Hohenhörn bank, where Davies was

wrecked, is one of those that lie between the upper and middle prongs.

Our business was to explore the Pike and the Fork and the channels

which ramify through them. I use the general word “channel”, but in

fact they differ widely in character, and are called in German by

various names: Balje, Gat, Loch, Diep, Rinne. For my purpose I need

only divide them into two sorts—those which have water in them at all

states of the tide, and those which have not, which dry off, that is,

either wholly or partly at low-tide.

Davies explained that the latter would take most learning, and were to

be our chief concern, because they were the “through-routes”—the

connecting links between the estuaries. You can always detect them on

the chart by rows of little Y-shaped strokes denoting “booms”, that is

to say, poles or saplings fixed in the sand to mark the passage. The

strokes, of course, are only conventional signs, and do not correspond

in the least to individual “booms”, which are far too numerous and

complex to be indicated accurately on a chart, even of the largest

scale. The same applies to the course of the channels themselves, whose

minor meanderings cannot be reproduced.

It was on the edge of one of these tidal swatchways that the yacht was

now lying. It is called Sticker’s Gat, and you cannot miss it _[See

Chart A]_ if you carry your eye westward along our course from

Cuxhaven. It was, so Davies told me, the last and most intricate stage

of the “short cut” which the _Medusa_ had taken on that memorable day—a

stage he himself had never reached. Discussion ended, we went on deck,

Davies arming himself with a notebook, binoculars, and the prismatic

compass, whose use—to map the angles of the channels—was at last

apparent. This is what I saw when we emerged.