"Worse and worse," responded Mr. Croucher, coming to a stop. "Liège has fallen. It will be Namur next, and then Paris. France hasn't a chance. Neither has Russia." He gazed searchingly across the sea. "And then, if the enemy's ships slip out from the Kiel Canal, we're doomed."
"You think so, sir?" questioned Challis, easing the collar of his tunic as if it choked him.
"Think so?" cried Mr. Croucher almost resentfully. "I know! There is nothing more certain. Don't you make any mistake, constable. We've lived long enough in a fool's paradise. I tell you, the Germans have been preparing for this for years and years, only awaiting their chance. And they've got it, now. Nothing can stop them—nothing! Look how they're sweeping through Belgium! Those siege guns of theirs are simply awful. No fortress can resist them, and their naval guns are even greater. What our people have been thinking of over here I don't know. They don't seem to realise our danger. Why, we've no home army worth speaking of, now that the only soldiers we had have gone over to France, leaving us defenceless. We're at the enemy's mercy, Challis."
Constable Challis glanced aside at Darby Catchpole, who was closing his telescope, the submarine having passed beyond sight.
"And how could we hope to prevent their landing on an open coast like this?" pursued Mr. Croucher, bending forward on the support of his two sticks. "I tell you, if their ships break through the cordon of our fleet, we're doomed."
"Indeed, sir?" said Challis with composure. "I wasn't reckonin' on the Germans comin' over here to Haddisport, sir. How will they land their cavalry and artillery through shoal water? They can't bring transport liners across Alderwick Sands."
"Liners?" repeated Mr. Croucher. "Who spoke of liners? They've got hundreds and thousands of flat-bottomed barges lying in the shallows behind the Frisian Islands, ready to be filled with troops and towed over here and beached. They don't need any liners."
Darby Catchpole here ventured to intervene. "And are our Dreadnoughts and cruisers going to hang back while the enemy troops are crossing, sir?" he inquired. "Won't our submarines have a chance?"
"Strictly between ourselves," observed Constable Challis, "I don't believe that a single German soldier will ever set foot in England, except as a prisoner of war."
"Nonsense, Challis, nonsense!" retorted Mr. Croucher. "I've no patience with such childish hopefulness. We're at war against the greatest army the world has ever known, and we're not prepared for it. The Germans will treat us just as they are now treating the Belgians. We've got no army capable of facing them. Even our navy is weaker than it ought to be. The Germans have their Dreadnoughts as well as we, and quite as powerful. They've got crowds of them, and——"