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By Root 24623 0

and chain had ended by giving me the idea that he was anxious to get us away from Bensersiel and the mainland. At first I had taken the advice partly as a test of our veracity (as I gave the reader to understand), and partly as an indirect method of lulling any suspicions which Grimm's midnight visit may have caused. Then it struck me that this might be over-subtlety on my part, and the idea recurred when the question of our future plans cropped up, and hampered me in deciding on a course. It returned again when von Brüning offered to tow us out in the evening. It was in my mind when I questioned him as to his business ashore, for it occurred to me that perhaps his landing here was not solely due to a wish to inspect the crew of the Dulcibella. Then came his perfectly frank explanation (with its sinister _double entente_ for us), coupled with an invitation to me to accompany him to Esens. But, on the principle of _'tinieo Danaos'_ etc., I instantly smelt a ruse, not that I dreamt that I was to be decoyed into captivity; but if there was anything here which we two might discover in the few hours left to us, it was an ingenious plan to remove the most observant of the two till the hour of departure.

Davies scorned them, and I had felt only a faint curiosity in these insignificant hamlets, influenced, I am afraid, chiefly by a hankering after _terra firma_ which the pitiless rigour of his training had been unable to cure.

But it was imprudent to neglect the slightest chance. It was three o'clock, and I think both our brains were beginning to be addled with thinking in close confinement. I suggested that we should finish our council of war in the open, and we both donned oilskins and turned out. The sky had hardened and banked into an even canopy of lead, and the wind drove before it a fine cold rain. You could hear the murmur of the rising flood on the sands outside, but the harbour was high above it still, and the Dulcibella and the other boats squatted low in a bed of black slime. Native interest seemed to be at last assuaged, for not a soul was visible on the bank (I cannot call it a quay); but the top of a black sou'wester with a feather of smoke curling round it showed above the forehatch of the Kormoran.

'I wish I could get a look at your cargo, my friend,' I thought to myself.

We gazed at Bensersiel in silence.

'There can't be anything _here_?' I said.

'What _can_ there be?' said Davies.

'What about that dyke?' I said, with a sudden inspiration.

From the bank we could see all along the coast-line, which is dyked continuously, as I have already said. The dyke was here a substantial brick-faced embankment, very similar, though on a smaller scale, to that which had bordered the Elbe near Cuxhaven, and over whose summit we had seen the snouts of guns.

'I say, Davies,' I said, 'do you think this coast could be invaded? Along here, I mean, behind these islands?'

Davies shook his head. 'I've thought of that,' he said. 'There's nothing in it. It's just the very last place on earth where a landing would be possible. No transport could get nearer than where the Blitz is lying, four miles out.'

'Well, you say every inch of this coast is important?'

'Yes, but it's the _water_ I mean.'

'Well, I want to see that dyke. Let's walk along it.'

My mushroom theory died directly I set foot on it. It was the most innocent structure in the world--like a thousand others in Essex and Holland--topped by a narrow path, where we walked in single file with arms akimbo to keep our balance in the gusts of wind. Below us lay the sands on one side and rank fens on the other, interspersed with squares of pasture ringed in with ditches. After half a mile we dropped down and came back by a short circuit inland, following a mazy path--which was mostly right angles and minute plank bridges, till we came to the Esens road. We crossed this and soon after found our way barred by the stream I spoke of. This involved a _détour_ to the bridge in the village, and a stealthy avoidance of the post-office, for dread of its garrulous occupant. Then we