“So am I,” I grunted, and it was the literal truth. I was only half awake, felt unwashed and dissipated, heavy in head and limbs. But for Davies I should never have been where I was. It was he who had patiently coaxed me out of my bunk, packed my bag, fed me with tea and an omelette (to which I believe he had devoted peculiarly tender care), and generally mothered me for departure. While I swallowed my second cup he was brushing the mould and smoothing the dents from my felt hat, which had been entombed for a month in the sail-locker; working at it with a remorseful concern in his face. The only initiative I am conscious of having shown was in the matter of my bag. “Put in my sea clothes, oils, and all,” I had said; “I may want them again.” There was mortal need of a thorough consultation, but this was out of the question. Davies did not badger or complain, but only timidly asked me how we were to meet and communicate, a question on which my mind was an absolute blank.
“Look out for me about the 26th,” I suggested feebly.
Before we left the cabin he gave me a scrap of pencilled paper and saw that it went safely into my pocket-book. “Look at it in the train,” he said.
Unable to cope with Böhme, I paced the deck aimlessly as we swung round the See Gat into the Buse Tief, trying to identify the point where we crossed it yesterday blindfold. But the tide was full, and the waters blank for miles round till they merged in haze. Soon I drifted down into the saloon, and crouching over a stove pulled out that scrap of paper. In a crabbed, boyish hand, and much besmudged with tobacco-ashes, I found the following notes:
(1) _Your journey_. [See Maps A and B.] Norddeich 8.58, Emden 10.32, Leer 11.16 (Böhme changes for Bremen), Rheine 1.8 (change), Amsterdam 7.17 p.m. Leave again _via_ Hook 8.52, London 9 am.
(2) The coast-station—_their_ rondezvous—querry is it _Norden_? (You pass it 9.13)—there is a tidal creek up to it. High-water there on 25th, say 10.30 to 11 p.m. It cannot be Norddeich, which I find has a dredged-out low-water channel for the steamer, so tide “serves” would not apply.
(3) _Your other clews_ (tugs, pilots, depths, railway, Esens, seven of something). Querry: Scheme of defence by land and sea for North Sea Coast?