They answered that he was often up and down the coast, work on the wreck being impossible in rough weather. They supposed he was bringing cargo in his galliot from Wilhelmshaven, all the company’s plant and stores coming from that port. He was a local man from Aurich; an ex-tug skipper.
We discussed this information while walking out over the sands to see the channel at low water.
“Did you hear anything about this in September?” I asked.
“Not a word. I didn’t go to Juist. I would have, probably, if I hadn’t met Dollmann.”
What in the world did it mean? How did it affect our plans?
“Look at his boots if we pass him,” was all Davies had to suggest.
The channel was now a ditch, with a trickle in it, running north by east, roughly, and edged by a dyke of withies for the first quarter of a mile. It was still blowing fresh from the north-east, and we saw that exit was impossible in such a wind.
So back to the village, a paltry, bleak little place. We passed friend Grimm on the bridge; a dark, clean-shaved, saturnine man, wearing _shoes._ Approaching the inn:
“We haven’t settled quite enough, have we?” said Davies. “What about our future plans?”
“Heaven knows, we haven’t,” I said. “But I don’t see how we can. We must see how things go. It’s past twelve, and it won’t do to be late.”
“All right, I’ll do my best. All you’ve got to do is to be yourself and tell one lie, if need be, about the trick Dollmann played you.”
The next scene: von Brüning, Davies, and I, sitting over coffee and Kümmel at a table in a dingy inn-parlour overlooking the harbour and the sea, Davies with a full box of matches on the table before him. The Commander gave us a hearty welcome, and I am bound to say I liked him at once, as Davies had done; but I feared him, too, for he had honest eyes, but abominably clever ones.
I had impressed on Davies to talk and question as freely and naturally as though nothing uncommon had happened since he last saw von Brüning on the deck of the _Medusa_. He must ask about Dollmann—the mutual friend—at the outset, and, if questioned about that voyage in his company to the Elbe, must lie like a trooper as to the danger he had been in. This was the one clear and essential necessity, where much was difficult. Davies did his duty with precipitation, and blushed when he put his question, in a way that horrified me, till I remembered that his embarrassment was due, and would be ascribed, to another cause.