"That is why I am careful," returned Max. "We're going to cross it. It's our only safe way. If you keep to the channel, you must either risk a shot from the naval gun on Haddisport pier, or else run up against the destroyer anchored off Buremouth. I'm going to take her across the shoal, through a gap that's used only by the lifeboatmen. Leave it to me, Hermann."
It was a feat in seamanship which no local fisherman, familiar with the dangers of the Alderwick shoal, would have believed possible. But Max Hilliger knew every fathom over the sunken bank, and he brought the boat through so skilfully that no one on board even guessed how narrow was their escape from disaster.
When at length she was safe beyond the reef, her course was set and she sped along, driven by her powerful motor.
The sea was clear of all traffic during the night, and there were no ships in sight to notice her unusual speed or to question her business. And if there were mine-fields to fear, those on the British side of the North Sea were known to Max Hilliger, while Lieutenant Körner knew equally well how to avoid those sown by the Germans in their own waters. So they went on in safety.
On the following morning, when they were off the Dogger Bank, heavy rain was falling. A fleet of fishing craft at work loomed dimly through the mist. As a precaution against suspicion, Körner stopped the petrol engine, depending upon the sails. The rain mist was still thick at mid-day, when, as from behind a curtain, a squadron of British battle cruisers and light cruisers appeared, accompanied by a patrol flotilla of destroyers and submarines. They passed within a mile of the Thor, and challenged her by signal. The Dutch colours were run up to her masthead and she was allowed to go on unmolested.
During the short time the warships were in sight, Max Hilliger was busy taking notes concerning them. With the help of an English book of reference, he was able to identify each one of them and to discover all particulars as to her speed, tonnage, and armament. He noted with particular interest that one of the destroyers was the Lupin, by which he had himself been rescued when the Atreus was mined, and that another was the Levity, upon which, as he had lately learned, Rodney Redisham was serving as a midshipman.
"Ah!" he regretted, gazing at the formidable bulk of the nearest battleship, "if this tub were only your submarine, Hermann, how you could distribute your torpedoes and send every one of them to the bottom! Look at their great guns—as great even as some of our own! We shall not easily beat them in a pitched battle. And they outnumber our High Sea Fleet. It must be by our submarines that we conquer them. Hermann, I want you to get me on board your submarine. Then we can get about the seas, sinking every English warship that we can find!"
"Very well, my friend," returned Lieutenant Körner. "For you it will not be difficult. It needs only that you mention the ambition to your uncle, Admiral von Hilliger, and the thing is settled. Is it not so?"
It was to Admiral von Hilliger's flagship, the armoured cruiser Schiller, that Max was now bound. She was known to be lying behind the island of Heligoland, protected by the fortress and by the mine-fields of the Bight.
Lieutenant Körner made a course by secret passages through the mines and under the lee of the Frisian Islands, and it was just before sunset that the Thor entered the estuary of the Elbe and came into the midst of the Kaiser's High Sea Fleet.