CHAPTER IX.

I Sign Articles

It was not an easy question to answer, for the affair was utterly

outside all my experience; its background the sea, and its actual scene

a region of the sea of which I was blankly ignorant. There were other

difficulties that I could see perhaps better than Davies, an enthusiast

with hobbies, who had been brooding in solitude over his dangerous

adventure. Yet both narrative and theory (which have lost, I fear, in

interpretation to the reader) had strongly affected me; his forcible

roughnesses, tricks of manner, sudden bursts of ardour, sudden retreats

into shyness, making up a charm I cannot render. I found myself

continually trying to see the man through the boy, to distinguish sober

judgement from the hot-headed vagaries of youth. Not that I dreamed for

a moment of dismissing the story of his wreck as an hallucination. His

clear blue eyes and sane simplicity threw ridicule on such treatment.

Evidently, too, he wanted my help, a matter that might well have

influenced my opinion on the facts, had he been other than he was. But

it would have taken a “finished and finite clod” to resist the

attraction of the man and the enterprise; and I take no credit whatever

for deciding to follow him, right or wrong. So, when I stated my

difficulties, I knew very well that we should go.

“There are two main points that I don’t understand,” I said. “First,

you’ve never explained why an _Englishman_ should be watching those

waters and ejecting intruders; secondly, your theory doesn’t supply

sufficient motive. There may be much in what you say about the

navigation of those channels, but it’s not enough. You say he wanted to

drown you—a big charge, requiring a big motive to support it. But I

don’t deny that you’ve got a strong case.” Davies lighted up. “I’m

willing to take a good deal for granted—until we find out more.”

He jumped up, and did a thing I never saw him do before or since—bumped

his head against the cabin roof.

“You mean that you’ll come?” he exclaimed. “Why, I hadn’t even asked

you! Yes, I want to go back and clear up the whole thing. I know now

that I want to; telling it all to you has been such an immense relief.

And a lot depended on you, too, and that’s why I’ve been feeling such

an absolute hypocrite. I say, how can I apologise?”

“Don’t worry about me; I’ve had a splendid time. And I’ll come right

enough; but I should like to know exactly what you——”

“No; but wait till I just make a clean breast of it—about you, I mean.

You see, I came to the conclusion that I could do nothing alone; not

that two are really necessary for managing the boat in the ordinary

way, but for this sort of job you _do_ want two; besides, I can’t speak

German properly, and I’m a dull chap all round. If my theory, as you

call it, is right, it’s a case for sharp wits, if ever there was one;

so I thought of you. You’re clever, and I knew you had lived in Germany

and knew German, and I knew,” he added, with a little awkwardness,

“that you had done a good deal of yachting; but of course I ought to

have told you what you were in for—roughing it in a small boat with no

crew. I felt ashamed of myself when you wired back so promptly, and

when you came—er——” Davies stammered and hesitated in the humane

resolve not to wound my feelings. “Of course I couldn’t help noticing

that it wasn’t what you expected,” was the delicate summary he arrived

at. “But you took it splendidly,” he hastened to add. “Only, somehow, I

couldn’t bring myself to talk about the plan. It was good enough of you

to come out at all, without bothering you with hare-brained schemes.

Beside, I wasn’t even sure of myself. It’s a tangled business. There

were reasons, there are reasons still”—he looked nervously at

me—“which—well, which make it a tangled business.” I had thought a

confidence was coming, and was disappointed. “I was in an idiotic state

of uncertainty,” he hurried on; “but the plan grew on me more and more,

when I saw how you were taking to the life and beginning to enjoy

yourself. All that about the ducks on the Frisian coast was humbug;

part of a stupid idea of decoying you there and gaining time. However,

you quite naturally objected, and last night I meant to chuck the whole

thing up and give you the best time here I could. Then Bartels turned

up——”

“Stop,” I put in. “Did you know he might turn up when you sailed here?”

“Yes,” said Davies, guiltily. “I knew he might; and now it’s all come

out, and you’ll come! What a fool I’ve been!”

Long before he had finished I had grasped the whole meaning of the last

few days, and had read their meaning into scores of little incidents

which had puzzled me.

“For goodness’ sake, don’t apologise,” I protested. “I could make

confessions, too, if I liked. And I doubt if you’ve been such a fool as

you think. I’m a patient that wants careful nursing, and it has been

the merest chance all through that I haven’t rebelled and bolted. We’ve

got a good deal to thank the weather for, and other little stimulants.

And you don’t know yet my reasons for deciding to try your cure at

all.”

“My cure?” said Davies; “what in the world do you mean? It was jolly

decent of you to——”

“Never mind! There’s another view of it, but it doesn’t matter now.

Let’s return to the point. What’s your plan of action?”

“It’s this,” was the prompt reply: “to get back to the North Sea, _via_

Kiel and the ship canal. Then there will be two objects: one, to work

back to Norderney, where I left off before, exploring all those

channels through the estuaries and islands; the other, to find

Dollmann, discover what he’s up to, and settle with him. The two things

may overlap, we can’t tell yet. I don’t even know where he and his

yacht are; but I’ll be bound they’re somewhere in those same waters,

and probably back at Norderney.”

“It’s a delicate matter,” I mused, dubiously, “if your theory’s

correct. Spying on a spy——”

“It’s not like that,” said Davies, indignantly. “Anyone who likes can

sail about there and explore those waters. I say, you don’t really

think it’s like that, do you?”

“I don’t think you’re likely to do anything dishonourable,” I hastened

to explain. “I grant you the sea’s public property in your sense. I

only mean that developments are possible, which you don’t reckon on.

There _must_ be more to find out than the mere navigation of those

channels, and if that’s so, mightn’t we come to be genuine spies

ourselves?”

“And, after all, hang it!” exclaimed Davies, “if it comes to that, why

shouldn’t we? I look at it like this. The man’s an Englishman, and if

he’s in with Germany he’s a traitor to us, and we as Englishmen have a

right to expose him. If we can’t do it without spying we’ve a right to

spy, at our own risk——”

“There’s a stronger argument than that. He tried to take your life.”

“I don’t care a rap about that. I’m not such an ass as to thirst for

revenge and all that, like some chap in a shilling shocker. But it

makes me wild to think of that fellow masquerading as a German, and up

to who knows what mischief—mischief enough to make him want to get rid

of _any_ one. I’m keen about the sea, and I think they’re apt to be a

bit slack at home,” he continued inconsequently. “Those Admiralty chaps

want waking up. Anyway, as far as I’m concerned, it’s quite natural

that I should look him up again.”

“Quite,” I agreed; “you parted friends, and they may be delighted to

see you. You’ll have plenty to talk about.”

“H’m,” said Davies, withered into silence by the “they”. “Hullo! I say,

do you know it’s three o’clock? How the time has gone! And, by Jove! I

believe the fog’s lifting.”

I returned, with a shock, to the present, to the weeping walls, the

discoloured deal table, the ghastly breakfast litter—all the visible

symbols of the life I had pledged myself to. Disillusionment was making

rapid headway when Davies returned, and said, with energy:

“What do you say to starting for Kiel at once? The fog’s going, and

there’s a breeze from the sou’-west.”

“Now?” I protested. “Why, it’ll mean sailing all night, won’t it?”

“Oh, no,” said Davies. “Not with luck.”

“Why, it’s dark at seven!”

“Yes, but it’s only twenty-five miles. I know it’s not exactly a fair

wind, but we shall lie closehauled most of the way. The glass is

falling, and we ought to take this chance.”

To argue about winds with Davies was hopeless, and the upshot was that

we started lunchless. A pale sun was flickering out of masses of racing

vapour, and through delicate vistas between them the fair land of

Schleswig now revealed and now withdrew her pretty face, as though

smiling _adieux_ to her faithless courtiers.

The clank of our chain brought up Bartels to the deck of the

_Johannes_, rubbing his eyes and pulling round his throat a grey shawl,

which gave him a comical likeness to a lodging-house landlady receiving

the milk in morning _déshabillé._

“We’re off, Bartels,” said Davies, without looking up from his work.

“See you at Kiel, I hope.”

“You are always in a hurry, captain,” bleated the old man, shaking his

head. “You should wait till to-morrow. The sky is not good, and it will

be dark before you are off Eckenförde.”

Davies laughed, and very soon his mentor’s sad little figure was lost

in haze.

That was a curious evening. Dusk soon fell, and the devil made a

determined effort to unman me; first, with the scrambled tea which was

the tardy substitute for an orderly lunch, then with the new and

nauseous duty of filling the side-lights, which meant squatting in the

fo’c’sle to inhale paraffin and dabble in lamp-black; lastly, with an

all-round attack on my nerves as the night fell on our frail little

vessel, pitching on her precarious way through driving mist. In a sense

I think I went through the same sort of mental crisis as when I sat

upon my portmanteau at Flensburg. The main issue was not seriously in

question, for I had signed on in the _Dulcibella_ for good or ill; but

in doing so I had outrun myself, and still wanted an outlook, a mood

suited to the enterprise, proof against petty discouragements. Not for

the first time a sense of the ludicrous came to my assistance, as I saw

myself fretting in London under my burden of self-imposed woes, nicely

weighing that insidious invitation, and stepping finally into the snare

with the dignity due to my importance; kidnapped as neatly as ever a

peaceful clerk was kidnapped by a lawless press-gang, and, in the end,

finding as the arch-conspirator a guileless and warm-hearted friend,

who called me clever, lodged me in a cell, and blandly invited me to

talk German to the purpose, as he was aiming at a little secret service

on the high seas. Close in the train of Humour came Romance, veiling

her face, but I knew it was the rustle of her robes that I heard in the

foam beneath me; I knew that it was she who handed me the cup of

sparkling wine and bade me drink and be merry. Strange to me though it

was, I knew the taste when it touched my lips. It was not that bastard

concoction I had tasted in the pseudo-Bohemias of Soho; it was not the

showy but insipid beverage I should have drunk my fill of at Morven

Lodge; it was the purest of her pure vintages, instilling the ancient

inspiration which, under many guises, quickens thousands of better

brains than mine, but whose essence is always the same; the gay pursuit

of a perilous quest. Then and there I tried to clinch the matter and

keep that mood. In the main I think I succeeded, though I had many

lapses.

For the present my veins tingled with the draught. The wind humming

into the mainsail, the ghostly wave-crests riding up out of the void,

whispered a low thrilling chorus in praise of adventure. Potent indeed

must the spell have been, for, in reality, that first night sail teemed

with terrors for me. It is true that it began well, for the haze

dispersed, as Davies had prophesied, and Bulk Point Lighthouse guided

us safely to the mouth of Kiel Fiord. It was during this stage that,

crouching together aft, our pipe-bowls glowing sympathetically, we

returned to the problem before us; for we had shot out on our quest

with volcanic precipitation, leaving much to be discussed. I gleaned a

few more facts, though I dispelled no doubts. Davies had only seen the

Dollmanns on their yacht, where father and daughter were living for the

time. Their villa at Norderney, and their home life there, were unknown

to him, though he had landed once at the harbour himself. Further, he

had heard vaguely of a stepmother, absent at Hamburg. They were to have

joined her on their arrival at that city, which, be it noted, stands a

long way up the Elbe, forty miles and more above Cuxhaven, the town at

the mouth.

The exact arrangement made on the day before the fatal voyage was that

the two yachts should meet in the evening at Cuxhaven and proceed up

the river together. Then, in the ordinary course, Davies would have

parted company at Brunsbüttel (fifteen miles up), which is the western

terminus of the ship canal to the Baltic. Such at least had been his

original intention; but, putting two and two together, I gathered that

latterly, and perhaps unconfessed to himself, his resolve had weakened,

and that he would have followed the _Medusa_ to Hamburg, or indeed the

end of the world, impelled by the same motive that, contrary to all his

tastes and principles, had induced him to abandon his life in the

islands and undertake the voyage at all. But on that point he was

immovably reticent, and all I could conclude was that the strange

cross-current connected with Dollmann’s daughter had given him cruel

pain and had clouded his judgement to distraction, but that he now was

prepared to forget or ignore it, and steer a settled course.

The facts I elicited raised several important questions. Was it not

known by this time that he and his yacht had survived? Davies was

convinced that it was not. “He may have waited at Cuxhaven, or inquired

at the lock at Brunsbüttel,” he said. “But there was no need, for I

tell you the thing was a certainty. If I had struck and _stuck_ on that

outer bank, as it was a hundred to one I should do, the yacht would

have broken up in three minutes. Bartels would never have seen me, and

couldn’t have got to me if he had. No one would have seen me. And

nothing whatever has happened since to show that they know I’m alive.”

“They,” I suggested. “Who are ‘they’? Who are our adversaries?” If

Dollmann were an accredited agent of the German Admiralty—— But, no, it

was incredible that the murder of a young Englishman should be connived

at in modern days by a friendly and civilised government! Yet, if he

were not such an agent, the whole theory fell to the ground.

“I believe,” said Davies, “that Dollmann did it off his own bat, and

beyond that I can’t see. And I don’t know that it matters at present.

Alive or dead we’re doing nothing wrong, and have nothing to be ashamed

of.”

“I think it matters a good deal,” I objected. “Who will be interested

in our resurrection, and how are we to go to work, openly or secretly?

I suppose we shall keep out of the way as much as we can?”

“As for keeping out of the way,” said Davies, jerkily, as he peered to

windward under the foresail, “we _must_ pass the ship canal; that’s a

public highway, where anyone can see you. After that there won’t be

much difficulty. Wait till you see the place!” He gave a low, contented

laugh, which would have frozen my marrow yesterday. “By the way, that

reminds me,” he added; “we must stop at Kiel for the inside of a day

and lay in a lot of stores. We want to be independent of the shore.” I

said nothing. Independence of the shore in a seven-tonner in October!

What an end to aim at!

About nine o’clock we weathered the point, entered Kiel Fiord, and

began a dead beat to windward of seven miles to the head of it where

Kiel lies. Hitherto, save for the latent qualms concerning my total

helplessness if anything happened to Davies, interest and excitement

had upheld me well. My alarms only began when I thought them nearly

over. Davies had frequently urged me to turn in and sleep, and I went

so far as to go below and coil myself up on the lee sofa with my pencil

and diary. Suddenly there was a flapping and rattling on deck, and I

began to slide on to the floor. “What’s happened?” I cried, in a panic,

for there was Davies stooping in at the cabin door.

“Nothing,” he said, chafing his hands for warmth; “I’m only going

about. Hand me the glasses, will you? There’s a steamer ahead. I say,

if you really don’t want to turn in, you might make some soup. Just

let’s look at the chart.” He studied it with maddening deliberation,

while I wondered how near the steamer was, and what the yacht was doing

meanwhile.

“I suppose it’s not really necessary for anyone to be at the helm?” I

remarked.

“Oh, she’s all right for a minute,” he said, without looking up.

“Two—one and a half—one—lights in line sou’-west by west—got a match?”

He expended two, and tumbled upstairs again.

“You don’t want me, do you?” I shouted after him.

“No, but come up when you’ve put the kettle on. It’s a pretty beat up

the fiord. Lovely breeze.”

His legs disappeared. A sort of buoyant fatalism possessed me as I

finished my notes and pored over the stove. It upheld me, too, when I

went on deck and watched the “pretty beat”, whose prettiness was mainly

due to the crowd of fog-bound shipping—steamers, smacks, and

sailing-vessels—now once more on the move in the confined fairway of

the fiord, their baleful eyes of red, green, or yellow, opening and

shutting, brightening and fading; while shore-lights and anchor-lights

added to my bewilderment, and a throbbing of screws filled the air like

the distant roar of London streets. In fact, every time we spun round

for our dart across the fiord I felt like a rustic matron gathering her

skirts for the transit of the Strand on a busy night. Davies, however,

was the street arab who zigzags under the horses’ feet unscathed; and

all the time he discoursed placidly on the simplicity and safety of

night-sailing if only you are careful, obeying rules, and burnt good

lights. As we were nearing the hot glow in the sky that denoted Kiel we

passed a huge scintillating bulk moored in mid-stream. “Warships,” he

murmured, ecstatically.

At one o’clock we anchored off the town.