Gaining the top of the wall Hamerton began to crawl back towards the place where he had left Detroit. He had little fear of detection from the searchlight men: his danger lay in the fact that upon crossing the beam of light from the open door his silhouetted figure might be seen by a vigilant sentry.
Fortunately his misgivings were not materialized, and without incident he crawled to the place where his anxious comrade was impatiently waiting.
"A sixteen-inch gun over there," whispered the Sub excitedly. "A regular brute. Tumbled right on top of the anti-aircraft shield."
"Hurt yourself?"
"Only shaken a bit. Come on, it's about time we thought of something to eat. It was a quarter past one when I was in the gunpit."
"What's the programme?" asked Detroit.
"Make for the nearest house. We'll try our hands at amateur burglaring. If we keep midway between the fence and the edge of the cliff we ought to pass halfway between the double row of sentries."
It took the daring fugitives the best part of an hour to arrive at the lighthouse, a circular white tower—showing two powerful electric lights every five seconds—rising to a height of two hundred and seventy feet above the sea level. In a recent notice to mariners issued by the German Government it was stated that the lights were liable not to be shown during the manoeuvres, and plainly hinted that all merchant vessels should keep as far away as possible.
A few feet from the base of the tower stood the lighthouse-keepers' houses. The light was attended by German marines, since the fiat had gone forth that civilians were not to hold any Government post in the island of Heligoland. The keepers, with their wives and families, still occupied the same quarters as their predecessors, instead of living in barracks.
The problem now before Hamerton and his companion was which of the six houses was to be honoured by their attentions. It would be rather awkward to fix upon one where the keeper was spending his off-duty hours; in fact, an alarm raised in any one of them would inevitably bring speedy aid. But the reason why Hamerton decided upon the lighthouse quarters at all was that their comparative isolation made it easier to escape.