The Classic Mystery Collection - Arthur Conan Doyle [1013]
Davies in his enthusiasm set no limits to its importance. The small boat in shallow waters played a mighty _rôle_ in his vision of a naval war, a part that would grow in importance as the war developed and reach its height in the final stages.
'The heavy battle fleets are all very well,' he used to say, 'but if the sides are well matched there might be nothing left of them after a few months of war. They might destroy one another mutually, leaving as nominal conqueror an admiral with scarcely a battleship to bless himself with. It's then that the true struggle will set in; and it's then that anything that will float will be pressed into the service, and anybody who can steer a boat, knows his waters, and doesn't care the toss of a coin for his life, will have magnificent opportunities. It cuts both ways. What small boats can do in these waters is plain enough; but take our own case. Say we're beaten on the high seas by a coalition. There's then a risk of starvation or invasion. It's all rot what they talk about instant surrender. We can live on half rations, recuperate, and build; but we must have time. Meanwhile our coast and ports are in danger, for the millions we sink in forts and mines won't carry us far. They're fixed--pure passive defence. What you want is _boats_--mosquitoes with stings--swarms of them--patrol-boats, scout-boats, torpedo-boats; intelligent irregulars manned by local men, with a pretty free hand to play their own game. And what a splendid game to play! There are places very like this over there--nothing half so good, but similar--the Mersey estuary, the Dee, the Severn, the Wash, and, best of all, the Thames, with all the Kent, Essex, and Suffolk banks round it. But as for defending our coasts in the way I mean--we've nothing ready--nothing whatsoever! We don't even build or use small torpedo-boats. These fast "destroyers" are no good for _this_ work--too long and unmanageable, and most of them too deep. What you want is something strong and simple, of light draught, and with only a spar-torpedo, if it came to that. Tugs, launches, small yachts--anything would do at a pinch, for success would depend on intelligence, not on brute force or complicated mechanism. They'd get wiped out often, but what matter? There'd be no lack of the right sort of men for them if the thing was _organized._ But where are the men?
'Or, suppose we have the best of it on the high seas, and have to attack or blockade a coast like this, which is sand from end to end. You can't improvise people who are at home in such waters. The navy chaps don't learn it, though, by Jove! they're the most magnificent service in the world--in pluck, and nerve, and everything else. They'll _try_ anything, and often do the impossible. But their boats are deep, and they get little practice in this sort of thing.'
Davies never pushed home his argument here; but I know that it was the passionate wish of his heart, somehow and somewhere, to get a chance of turning his knowledge of this coast to practical account in the war that he felt was bound to come, to play that 'splendid game' in this, the most fascinating field for it.
I can do no more than sketch his views. Hearing them as I did, with the very splash of the surf and the bubble of the tides in my ears, they made a profound impression on me, and gave me the very zeal for our work he, by temperament, possessed.
But as the days passed and nothing occurred to disturb us, I felt more and more strongly that, as regards our quest, we were on the wrong tack. We found nothing suspicious, nothing that suggested a really adequate motive for Dollmann's treachery. 1 became impatient, and was for pushing on more quickly westward. Davies still clung to his theory, but the same feeling influenced him.
'It's something to do with these channels in the sand,' he persisted, 'but I'm afraid, as you say,