“At this tide, a bee-line to Norderney by compass; we shall have water over all the banks.”
He had all his preparations made, the lamp lit in advance, the compass in position, and we started at once; he at the bow-oar where he had better control over the boat’s nose; lamp and compass on the floor between us. Twilight thickened into darkness—a choking, pasty darkness—and still we sped unfalteringly over that trackless waste, sitting and swinging in our little pool of stifled orange light. To drown fatigue and suspense I conned over my clues, and tried to carve into my memory every fugitive word I had overheard.
“What are there seven of round here?” I called back to Davies once (thinking of A to G). “Sorry,” I added, for no answer came.
“I see a star,” was my next word, after a long interval. “Now it’s gone. There it is again! Right aft!”
“That’s Borkum light,” said Davies, presently; “the fog’s lifting.” A keen wind from the west struck our faces, and as swiftly as it had come the fog rolled away from us, in one mighty mass, stripping clean and pure the starry dome of heaven, still bright with the western after-glow, and beginning to redden in the east to the rising moon. Norderney light was flashing ahead, and Davies could take his tired eyes from the pool of light.
“Damn!” was all he uttered in the way of gratitude for this mercy, and I felt very much the same; for in a fog Davies in a dinghy was a match for a steamer; in a clear he lost his handicap.
It was a quarter to seven. “An hour’ll do it, if we buck up,” he pronounced, after taking a rough bearing with the two lights. He pointed out a star to me, which we were to keep exactly astern, and again I applied to their labour my aching back and smarting palms.
“What did you say about seven of something?” said Davies.
“Islands, of course,” said Davies. “Is that the clue?”
Then followed the most singular of all our confabulations. Two memories are better than one, and the sooner I carved the cipher into his memory as well as mine the better record we should have. So, with rigid economy of breath, I snapped out all my story, and answered his breathless questions. It saved me from being mesmerised by the star, and both of us from the consciousness of over-fatigue.