my ropes in the dark, could beat
economically to windward through squalls, take bearings, and estimate
the interaction of wind and tide.

We were generally in solitude, but occasionally we met galliots like
the 'Johannes' tacking through the sands, and once or twice we found a
fleet of such boats anchored in a gut, waiting for water. Their
draught, loaded, was from six to seven feet, our own only four,
without our centre-plate, but we took their mean draught as the
standard of all our observations. That is, we set ourselves to
ascertain when and how a vessel drawing six and a half feet could
navigate the sands.

A word more as to our motive. It was Davies's conviction, as I have
said, that the whole region would in war be an ideal hunting-ground
for small free-lance marauders, and I began to know he was right; for
look at the three sea-roads through the sands to Hamburg, Bremen,
Wilhelmshaven, and the heart of commercial Germany. They are like
highways piercing a mountainous district by defiles, where a handful
of desperate men can arrest an army.

Follow the parallel of a war on land. People your mountains with a
daring and resourceful race, who possess an intimate knowledge of
every track and bridle-path, who operate in small bands, travel
light, and move rapidly. See what an immense advantage such guerillas
possess over an enemy which clings to beaten tracks, moves in large
bodies, slowly, and does not 'know the country'. See how they can not
only inflict disasters on a foe who vastly overmatches them in
strength, but can prolong a semi-passive resistance long after all
decisive battles have been fought. See, too, how the strong invader
can only conquer his elusive antagonists by learning their methods,
studying the country, and matching them in mobility and cunning. The
parallel must not be pressed too far; but that this sort of warfare
will have its counterpart on the sea is a truth which cannot be
questioned.

Davies in his enthusiasm set no limits to its importance. The small
boat in shallow waters played a mighty _role_ in his vision of a
naval war, a part that would grow in importance as the war developed
and reach its height in the final stages.

'The heavy battle fleets are all very well,' he used to say, 'but if
the sides are well matched there might be nothing left of them after
a few months of war. They might destroy one another mutually, leaving
as nominal conqueror an admiral with scarcely a battl