CHAPTER XXII.

The Quartette

His _tour de force_ was achieved, and for the moment something like

collapse set in.

“What in the world have we come here for?” he muttered; “I feel a bit

giddy.”

I made him drink some whisky, which revived him; and then, speaking in

whispers, we settled certain points.

I alone was to land. Davies demurred to this out of loyalty, but common

sense, coinciding with a strong aversion of his own, settled the

matter. Two were more liable to detection than one. I spoke the

language well, and if challenged could cover my retreat with a gruff

word or two; in my woollen overalls, sea-boots, oilskin coat, with a

sou’-wester pulled well over my eyes, I should pass in a fog for a

Frisian. Davies must mind the dinghy; but how was I to regain it? I

hoped to do so without help, by using the edge of the sand; but if he

heard a long whistle he was to blow the foghorn.

“Take the pocket-compass,” he said. “Never budge from the shore without

using it, and lay it on the ground for steadiness. Take this scrap of

chart, too—it may come in useful; but you can’t miss the depôt, it

looks to be close to the shore. How long will you be?”

“How long have I got?”

“The young flood’s making—has been for nearly an hour—that bank (he

measured it with his eye) will be covering in an hour and a half.”

“That ought to be enough.”

“Don’t run it too fine. It’s steep here, but it may shelve farther on.

If you have to wade you’ll never find me, and you’ll make a deuce of a

row. Got your watch, matches, knife? No knife? Take mine; never go

anywhere without a knife.” (It was his seaman’s idea of efficiency.)

“Wait a bit, we must settle a place to meet at in case I’m late and

can’t reach you here.”

“_Don’t_ be late. We’ve got to get back to the yacht before we’re

missed.”

“But I may have to hide and wait till dark—the fog may clear.”

“We were fools to come, I believe,” said Davies, gloomily. “There _are_

no meeting-places in a place like this. Here’s the best I can see on

the chart—a big triangular beacon marked on the very point of Memmert.

You’ll pass it.”

“All right. I’m off.”

“Good luck,” said Davies, faintly.

I stepped out, climbed a miry glacis of five or six feet, reached hard

wet sand, and strode away with the sluggish ripple of the Balje on my

left hand. A curtain dropped between me and Davies, and I was

alone—alone, but how I thrilled to feel the firm sand rustle under my

boots; to know that it led to dry land, where, whatever befell, I could

give my wits full play. I clove the fog briskly.

Good Heavens! what was that? I stopped short and listened. From over

the water on my left there rang out, dulled by fog, but distinct to the

ear, three double strokes on a bell or gong. I looked at my watch.

“Ship at anchor,” I said to myself. “Six bells in the afternoon watch.”

I knew the Balje was here a deep roadstead, where a vessel entering the

Eastern Ems might very well anchor to ride out a fog.

I was just stepping forward when another sound followed from the same

quarter, a bugle-call this time. Then I understood—only men-of-war

sound bugles—the _Blitz_ was here then; and very natural, too, I

thought, and strode on. The sand was growing drier, the water farther

beneath me; then came a thin black ribbon of weed—high-water mark. A

few cautious steps to the right and I touched tufts of marram grass. It

was Memmert. I pulled out the chart and refreshed my memory. No! there

could be no mistake; keep the sea on my left and I must go right. I

followed the ribbon of weed, keeping it just in view, but walking on

the verge of the grass for the sake of silence. All at once I almost

tripped over a massive iron bar; others, a rusty network of them, grew

into being above and around me, like the arms of a ghostly polyp.

“What infernal spider’s web is this?” I thought, and stumbled clear. I

had strayed into the base of a gigantic tripod, its gaunt legs stayed

and cross-stayed, its apex lost in fog; the beacon, I remembered. A

hundred yards farther and I was down on my knees again, listening with

might and main; for several little sounds were in the air—voices, the

rasp of a boat’s keel, the whistling of a tune. These were straight

ahead. More to the left, seaward, that is, I had aural evidence of the

presence of a steamboat—a small one, for the hiss of escaping steam was

low down. On my right front I as yet heard nothing, but the depôt must

be there.

I prepared to strike away from my base, and laid the compass on the

ground—NW. roughly I made the course. (“South-east—south-east for

coming back,” I repeated inwardly, like a child learning a lesson.)

Then of my two allies I abandoned one, the beach, and threw myself

wholly on the fog.

“Play the game,” I said to myself. “Nobody expects you; nobody will

recognise you.”

I advanced in rapid stages of ten yards or so, while grass disappeared

and soft sand took its place, pitted everywhere with footmarks. I trod

carefully, for obstructions began to show themselves—an anchor, a heap

of rusty cable; then a boat bottom upwards, and, lying on it, a foul

old meerschaum pipe. I paused here and strained my ears, for there were

sounds in many directions; the same whistling (behind me now), heavy

footsteps in front, and somewhere beyond—fifty yards away, I reckoned—a

buzz of guttural conversation; from the same quarter there drifted to

my nostrils the acrid odour of coarse tobacco. Then a door banged.

I put the compass in my pocket (thinking “south-east, south-east”),

placed the pipe between my teeth (ugh! the rank savour of it!) rammed

my sou’-wester hard down, and slouched on in the direction of the door

that had banged. A voice in front called, “Karl Schicker”; a nearer

voice, that of the man whose footsteps I had heard approaching, took it

up and called “Karl Schicker”: I, too, took it up, and, turning my

back, called “Karl Schicker” as gruffly and gutturally as I could. The

footsteps passed quite close to me, and glancing over my shoulder I saw

a young man passing, dressed very like me, but wearing a sealskin cap

instead of a sou’-wester. As he walked he seemed to be counting coins

in his palm. A hail came back from the beach and the whistling stopped.

I now became aware that I was on a beaten track. These meetings were

hazardous, so I inclined aside, but not without misgivings, for the

path led towards the buzz of talk and the banging door, and these were

my only guides to the depôt. Suddenly, and much before I expected it, I

knew rather than saw that a wall was in front of me; now it was

visible, the side of a low building of corrugated iron. A pause to

reconnoitre was absolutely necessary; but the knot of talkers might

have heard my footsteps, and I must at all costs not suggest the

groping of a stranger. I lit a match—two—and sucked heavily (as I had

seen navvies do) at my pipe, studying the trend of the wall by

reference to the sounds. There was a stale dottle wedged in the bowl,

and loathsome fumes resulted. Just then the same door banged again;

another name, which I forget, was called out. I decided that I was at

the end of a rectangular building which I pictured as like an Aldershot

“hut”, and that the door I heard was round the corner to my left. A

knot of men must be gathered there, entering it by turns. Having

expectorated noisily, I followed the tin wall to my _right,_ and

turning a corner strolled leisurely on, passing signs of domesticity, a

washtub, a water-butt, then a tiled approach to an open door. I now was

aware of the corner of a second building, also of zinc, parallel to the

first, but taller, for I could only just see the eave. I was just going

to turn off to this as a more promising field for exploration, when I

heard a window open ahead of me in my original building.

I am afraid I am getting obscure, so I append a rough sketch of the

scene, as I partly saw and chiefly imagined it. It was window (A) that

I heard open. From it I could just distinguish through the fog a hand

protrude, and throw something out—cigar-end? The hand, a clean one with

a gold signet ring, rested for an instant afterwards on the sash, and

then closed the window.

Illustration: diagram, Memmert Salvage Depot

My geography was clear now in one respect. That window belonged to the

same room as the banging door (B); for I distinctly heard the latter

open and shut again, opposite me on the other side of the building. It

struck me that it might be interesting to see into that room. “Play the

game,” I reminded myself, and retreated a few yards back on tiptoe,

then turned and sauntered coolly past the window, puffing my villainous

pipe and taking a long deliberate look into the interior as I

passed—the more deliberate that at the first instant I realised that

nobody inside was disturbing himself about me. As I had expected (in

view of the fog and the time) there was artificial light within. My

mental photograph was as follows: a small room with varnished deal

walls and furnished like an office; in the far right-hand corner a

counting-house desk, Grimm sitting at it on a high stool, side-face to

me, counting money; opposite him in an awkward attitude a burly fellow

in seaman’s dress holding a diver’s helmet. In the middle of the room a

deal table, and on it something big and black. Lolling on chairs near

it, their backs to me and their faces turned towards the desk and the

diver, two men—von Brüning and an older man with a bald yellow head

(Dollmann’s companion on the steamer, beyond a doubt). On another

chair, with its back actually tilted against the window, Dollmann.

Such were the principal features of the scene; for details I had to

make another inspection. Stooping low, I crept back, quiet as a cat,

till I was beneath the window, and, as I calculated, directly behind

Dollmann’s chair. Then with great caution I raised my head. There was

only one pair of eyes in the room that I feared in the least, and that

was Grimm’s, who sat in profile to me, farthest away. I instantly put

Dollmann’s back between Grimm and me, and then made my scrutiny. As I

made it, I could feel a cold sweat distilling on my forehead and

tickling my spine; not from fear or excitement, but from pure ignominy.

For beyond all doubt I was present at the meeting of a _bona-fide_

salvage company. It was pay-day, and the directors appeared to be

taking stock of work done; that was all.

Over the door was an old engraving of a two-decker under full sail;

pinned on the wall a chart and the plan of a ship. Relics of the

wrecked frigate abounded. On a shelf above the stove was a small

pyramid of encrusted cannon-balls, and supported on nails at odd places

on the walls were corroded old pistols, and what I took to be the

remains of a sextant. In a corner of the floor sat a hoary little

carronade, carriage and all. None of these things affected me so much

as a pile of lumber on the floor, not firewood but unmistakable

wreck-wood, black as bog-oak, still caked in places with the mud of

ages. Nor was it the mere sight of this lumber that dumbfounded me. It

was the fact that a fragment of it, a balk of curved timber garnished

with some massive bolts, lay on the table, and was evidently an object

of earnest interest. The diver had turned and was arguing with gestures

over it; von Brüning and Grimm were pressing another view. The diver

shook his head frequently, finally shrugged his shoulders, made a

salutation, and left the room. Their movements had kept me ducking my

head pretty frequently, but I now grew almost reckless as to whether I

was seen or not. All the weaknesses of my theory crowded on me—the

arguments Davies had used at Bensersiel; Fräulein Dollmann’s

thoughtless talk; the ease (comparatively) with which I had reached

this spot, not a barrier to cross or a lock to force; the publicity of

their passage to Memmert by Dollmann, his friend, and Grimm; and now

this glimpse of business-like routine. In a few moments I sank from

depth to depth of scepticism. Where were my mines, torpedoes, and

submarine boats, and where my imperial conspirators? Was gold after all

at the bottom of this sordid mystery? Dollmann after all a commonplace

criminal? The ladder of proof I had mounted tottered and shook beneath

me. “Don’t be a fool,” said the faint voice of reason. “There are your

four men. Wait.”

Two more _employés_ came into the room in quick succession and received

wages; one looking like a fireman, the other of a superior type, the

skipper of a tug, say. There was another discussion with this latter

over the balk of wreck-wood, and this man, too, shrugged his shoulders.

His departure appeared to end the meeting. Grimm shut up a ledger, and

I shrank down on my knees, for a general shifting of chairs began. At

the same time, from the other side of the building, I heard my knot of

men retreating beachwards, spitting and chatting as they went.

Presently someone walked across the room towards my window. I sidled

away on all fours, rose and flattened myself erect against the wall, a

sickening despondency on me; my intention to slink away south-east as

soon as the coast was clear. But the sound that came next pricked me

like an electric shock; it was the tinkle and scrape of curtain-rings.

Quick as thought I was back in my old position, to find my view barred

by a cretonne curtain. It was in one piece, with no chink for my

benefit, but it did not hang straight, bulging towards me under the

pressure of something—human shoulders by the shape. Dollmann, I

concluded, was still in his old place. I now was exasperated to find

that I could scarcely hear a word that was said, not even by pressing

my ear against the glass. It was not that the speakers were of set

purpose hushing their voices—they used an ordinary tone for intimate

discussion—but the glass and curtain deadened the actual words. Still,

I was soon able to distinguish general characteristics. Von Brüning’s

voice—the only one I had ever heard before—I recognised at once; he was

on the left of the table, and Dollmann’s I knew from his position. The

third was a harsh croak, belonging to the old gentleman whom, for

convenience, I shall prematurely begin to call Herr Böhme. It was too

old a voice to be Grimm’s; besides, it had the ring of authority, and

was dealing at the moment in sharp interrogations. Three of its

sentences I caught in their entirety. “When was that?” “They went no

farther?” and “Too long; out of the question.” Dollmann’s voice, though

nearest to me, was the least audible of all. It was a dogged monotone,

and what was that odd movement of the curtain at his back? Yes, his

hands were behind him clutching and kneading a fold of the cretonne.

“You are feeling uncomfortable, my friend,” was my comment. Suddenly he

threw back his head—I saw the dent of it—and spoke up so that I could

not miss a word. “Very well, sir, you shall see them at supper

to-night; I will ask them both.”

(You will not be surprised to learn that I instantly looked at my

watch—though it takes long to write what I have described—but the time

was only a quarter to four.) He added something about the fog, and his

chair creaked. Ducking promptly I heard the curtain-rings jar, and:

“Thick as ever.”

“Your report, Herr Dollmann,” said Böhme, curtly. Dollmann left the

window and moved his chair up to the table; the other two drew in

theirs and settled themselves.

“_Chatham,_” said Dollmann, as if announcing a heading. It was an easy

word to catch, rapped out sharp, and you can imagine how it startled

me. “That’s where you’ve been for the last month!” I said to myself. A

map crackled and I knew they were bending over it, while Dollmann

explained something. But now my exasperation became acute, for not a

syllable more reached me. Squatting back on my heels, I cast about for

expedients. Should I steal round and try the door? Too dangerous. Climb

to the roof and listen down the stove-pipe? Too noisy, and generally

hopeless. I tried for a downward purchase on the upper half of the

window, which was of the simple sort in two sections, working

vertically. No use; it resisted gentle pressure, would start with a

sudden jar if I forced it. I pulled out Davies’s knife and worked the

point of the blade between sash and frame to give it play—no result;

but the knife was a nautical one, with a marlin-spike as well as a big

blade.

Just now the door within opened and shut again, and I heard steps

approaching round the corner to my right. I had the presence of mind

not to lose a moment, but moved silently away (blessing the deep

Frisian sand) round the corner of the big parallel building. Someone

whom I could not see walked past till his boots clattered on tiles,

next resounded on boards. “Grimm in his living-room,” I inferred. The

precious minutes ebbed away—five, ten, fifteen. Had he gone for good? I

dared not return otherwise. Eighteen—he was coming out! This time I

stole forward boldly when the man had just passed, dimly saw a figure,

and clearly enough the glint of a white paper he was holding. He made

his circuit and re-entered the room.

Here I felt and conquered a relapse to scepticism. “If this is an

important conclave why don’t they set guards?” Answer, the only

possible one, “Because they stand alone. Their _employés,_ like

_everyone_ we had met hitherto, know nothing. The real object of this

salvage company (a poor speculation, I opined) is solely to afford a

pretext for the conclave.” “Why the curtain, even?” “Because there are

maps, stupid!”

I was back again at the window, but as impotent as ever against that

even stream of low confidential talk. But I would not give up. Fate and

the fog had brought me here, the one solitary soul perhaps who by the

chain of circumstances had both the will and the opportunity to wrest

their secret from these four men.

The marlin-spike! Where the lower half of the window met the sill it

sank into a shallow groove. I thrust the point of the spike down into

the interstice between sash and frame and heaved with a slowly

increasing force, which I could regulate to the fraction of an ounce,

on this powerful lever. The sash gave, with the faintest possible

protest, and by imperceptible degrees I lifted it to the top of the

groove, and the least bit above it, say half an inch in all; but it

made an appreciable difference to the sounds within, as when you remove

your foot from a piano’s soft pedal. I could do no more, for there was

no further fulcrum for the spike, and I dared not gamble away what I

had won by using my hands.

Hope sank again when I placed my cheek on the damp sill, and my ear to

the chink. My men were close round the table referring to papers which

I heard rustle. Dollmann’s “report” was evidently over, and I rarely

heard his voice; Grimm’s occasionally, von Brüning’s and Böhme’s

frequently; but, as before, it was the latter only that I could ever

count on for an intelligible word. For, unfortunately, the villains of

the piece plotted without any regard to dramatic fitness or to my

interests. Immersed in a subject with which they were all familiar,

they were allusive, elliptic, and persistently technical. Many of the

words I did catch were unknown to me. The rest were, for the most part,

either letters of the alphabet or statistical figures, of depth,

distance, and, once or twice, of time. The letters of the alphabet

recurred often, and seemed, as far as I could make out, to represent

the key to the cipher. The numbers clustering round them were mostly

very small, with decimals. What maddened me most was the scarcity of

plain nouns.

To report what I heard to the reader would be impossible; so chaotic

was most of it that it left no impression on my own memory. All I can

do is to tell him what fragments stuck, and what nebulous

classification I involved. The letters ran from A to G, and my best

continuous chance came when Böhme, reading rapidly from a paper, I

think, went through the letters, backwards, from G, adding remarks to

each; thus: “G. . . completed.” “F. . . bad. . . 1.3 (metres?). . .2.5

(kilometres?).” “E . . . thirty-two. . . 1.2.” “D. . . 3 weeks. . .

thirty.” “C. . .” and so on.

Another time he went through this list again, only naming each letter

himself, and receiving laconic answers from Grimm—answers which seemed

to be numbers, but I could not be sure. For minutes together I caught

nothing but the scratching of pens and inarticulate mutterings. But out

of the muck-heap I picked five pearls—four sibilant nouns and a name

that I knew before. The nouns were “Schleppboote” (tugs); “Wassertiefe”

(depth of water); “Eisenbahn” (railway); “Lotsen” (pilots). The name,

also sibilant and thus easier to hear, was “Esens”.

Two or three times I had to stand back and ease my cramped neck, and on

each occasion I looked at my watch, for I was listening against time,

just as we had rowed against time. We were going to be asked to supper,

and must be back aboard the yacht in time to receive the invitation.

The fog still brooded heavily and the light, always bad, was growing

worse. How would _they_ get back? How had they come from Juist? Could

we forestall them? Questions of time, tide, distance—just the odious

sort of sums I was unfit to cope with—were distracting my attention

when it should have been wholly elsewhere. 4.20—4.25—now it was past

4.30 when Davies said the bank would cover. I should have to make for

the beacon; but it was fatally near that steamboat path, etc., and I

still at intervals heard voices from there. It must have been about

4.35 when there was another shifting of chairs within. Then someone

rose, collected papers, and went out; someone else, _without_ rising

(therefore Grimm), followed him.

There was silence in the room for a minute, and after that, for the

first time, I heard some plain colloquial German, with no accompaniment

of scratching or rustling. “I must wait for this,” I thought, and

waited.

“He insists on coming,” said Böhme.

“Ach!” (an ejaculation of surprise and protest from von Brüning).

“I said the 25th.”

“Why?”

“The tide serves well. The night-train, of course. Tell Grimm to be

ready——” (An inaudible question from von Brüning.)

“No, any weather.” A laugh from von Brüning and some words I could not

catch.

“Only one, with half a load.”

“.....meet?”

“At the station.”

“So—how’s the fog?”

This appeared to be really the end. Both men rose and steps came

towards the window. I leapt aside as I heard it thrown up, and covered

by the noise backed into safety. Von Brüning called “Grimm!” and that,

and the open window, decided me that my line of advance was now too

dangerous to retreat by. The only alternative was to make a circuit

round the bigger of the two buildings—and an interminable circuit it

seemed—and all the while I knew my compass-course “south-east” was

growing nugatory. I passed a padlocked door, two corners, and faced the

void of fog. Out came the compass, and I steadied myself for the sum.

“South-east before—I’m farther to the eastward now—east will about do”;

and off I went, with an error of four whole points, over tussocks and

deep sand. The beach seemed much farther off than I had thought, and I

began to get alarmed, puzzled over the compass several times, and

finally realised that I had lost my way. I had the sense not to make

matters worse by trying to find it again, and, as the lesser of two

evils, blew my whistle, softly at first, then louder. The bray of a

foghorn sounded right _behind_ me. I whistled again and then ran for my

life, the horn sounding at intervals. In three or four minutes I was on

the beach and in the dinghy.