The more I looked at the chart the more puzzled I became. The islands were evidently mere sandbanks, with a cluster of houses and a church on each, the only hint of animation in their desolate ensemble being the occasional word “Bade-strand”, suggesting that they were visited in the summer months by a handful of townsfolk for the sea-bathing. Norderney, of course, was conspicuous in this respect; but even its town, which I know by repute as a gay and fashionable watering-place, would be dead and empty for some months in the year, and could have no commercial importance. No man could do anything on the mainland coast—a monotonous line of dyke punctuated at intervals by an infinitesimal village. Glancing idly at the names of these villages, I noticed that they most of them ended in siel—a repulsive termination, that seemed appropriate to the whole region. There were Carolinensiel, Bensersiel, etc. Siel means either a sewer or a sluice, the latter probably in this case, for I noticed that each village stood at the outlet of a little stream which evidently carried off the drainage of the lowlands behind. A sluice, or lock, would be necessary at the mouth, for at high tide the land is below the level of the sea. Looking next at the sands outside, I noticed that across them and towards each outlet a line of booms was marked, showing that there was some sort of tidal approach to the village, evidently formed by the scour of the little stream.
“Are we going to explore those?” I asked Davies.
“I don’t see the use,” he answered; “they only lead to those potty little places. I suppose local galliots use them.”
“How about your torpedo-boats and patrol-boats?”
“They might, at certain tides. But I can’t see what value they’d be, unless as a refuge for a German boat in the last resort. They lead to no harbours. Wait! There’s a little notch in the dyke at Neuharlingersiel and Dornumersiel, which may mean some sort of a quay arrangement, but what’s the use of that?”
“We may as well visit one or two, I suppose?”
“I suppose so; but we don’t want to be playing round villages. There’s heaps of really important work to do, farther out.”
“Well, what do you make of this coast?”
Davies had nothing but the same old theory, but he urged it with a force and keenness that impressed me more deeply than ever.
“Look at those islands!” he said. “They’re clearly the old line of coast, hammered into breaches by the sea. The space behind them is like an immense tidal harbour, thirty miles by five, and they screen it impenetrably. It’s absolutely made for shallow war-boats under skilled pilotage. They can nip in and out of the gaps, and dodge about from end to end. On one side is the Ems, on the other the big estuaries. It’s a perfect base for torpedo-craft.”