Ersk­ine Childers’ nov­el, The Rid­dle of the Sands, has a rea­son­able claim to have been the first true spy nov­el. Pub­lished in 1903, it enjoyed huge pop­u­lar­i­ty in Britain in the years lead­ing up to the First World War. Tak­ing its cue from the adven­ture tales of Rid­er Hag­gard and R M Bal­lan­tyne, Childers’ nov­el con­tains less of the der­ring-do of those writ­ers but lots more real­is­tic detail and intrigue and thus more authen­tic­i­ty. This for­mu­la would be used lat­er to great effect by such espi­onage writ­ers as John Buchan and Ian Flem­ing.

When Charles Car­ruthers (it had to be “Car­ruthers”, right?) accepts an invi­ta­tion from old Oxford chum Arthur Davies, to take a yacht­ing and duck-shoot­ing trip to the Frisian Islands (the arch­i­pel­ago at the east­ern edge of the North Sea), he has no idea their hol­i­day will become a dare­dev­il inves­ti­ga­tion into a Ger­man plot to invade Britain.
The action is cen­tred around the large area of coastal water­way that is the Schleswig fiords, char­ac­terised by hun­dreds of chan­nels and inlets and ever-shift­ing sand­banks that lend them­selves to skilled nav­i­ga­tors only. They lend them­selves to secre­tive plots too, as it turns out, and when Car­ruthers and Davies stum­ble upon mys­te­ri­ous goings-on, we are drawn into a clas­sic spy adven­ture in which the Ger­man plot to invade Britain is revealed…and of course even­tu­al­ly foiled. The abil­i­ty to use boats in this envi­ron­ment is a secret weapon, and Davies, despite his eccen­tric­i­ty, is a gift­ed sailor. The minu­ti­ae of sail­ing and nav­i­ga­tion through­out the book is engross­ing.

The nov­el pre­dict­ed the threat of war with Ger­many and was so pre­scient in its iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of the British coast’s defen­sive weak­ness­es that it came to influ­ence the sit­ing of new naval bases. As an aside, the sto­ry of its author is quite remark­able. Rather than fol­low­ing up the nov­el with a host of sequels as might have been expect­ed (a sort of nau­ti­cal equiv­a­lent of Big­gles per­haps?), Childers instead entered pol­i­tics. Quite bizarrely, since the nov­el is all about patri­ot­ic strug­gles for king and coun­try, its writer even­tu­al­ly became a fer­vent Irish nation­al­ist and was con­sid­ered a trai­tor by the British gov­ern­ment at the time of his death. He was exe­cut­ed by a fir­ing squad in 1922, by order of the Irish Free State.

How­ev­er, it is the nov­el that Childers will be chiefly remem­bered for, and I have select­ed as an excerpt the ini­tial let­ter from Davies to Car­ruthers invit­ing him out to the Frisian Islands. It gives us an intrigu­ing flavour of the adven­ture to come, plus an amus­ing insight into Davies’ scat­ter­gun psy­chol­o­gy. It makes me want to grab an oil­skin and a pipe and a pouch of “Raven mix­ture” and join the machi­na­tions!

 

With­ers demure­ly hand­ed me a let­ter bear­ing a Ger­man post­mark and marked ‘Urgent’. I had just fin­ished dress­ing, and was col­lect­ing my mon­ey and gloves. A momen­tary thrill of curios­i­ty broke in upon my depres­sion as I sat down to open it. A cor­ner on the reverse of the enve­lope bore the blot­ted leg­end: ‘Very sor­ry, but there’s one oth­er thing—a pair of rig­ging screws from Carey and Neil­son’s, size 1–3/8, gal­va­nized.’ Here it is:

Yacht Dul­ci­bel­la,

Flens­burg, Schleswig-Hol­stein, Sept. 21.

Dear Car­ruthers,—

I dare­say you’ll be sur­prised at hear­ing from me, as it’s ages since we met. It is more than like­ly, too, that what I’m going to sug­gest won’t suit you, for I know noth­ing of your plans, and if you’re in town at all you’re prob­a­bly just get­ting into har­ness again and can’t get away. So I mere­ly write on the off chance to ask if you would care to come out here and join me in a lit­tle yacht­ing, and, I hope, duck-shoot­ing. I know you’re keen on shoot­ing, and I sort of remem­ber that you have done some yacht­ing too, though I rather for­get about that. This part of the Baltic —the Schleswig fiords — is a splen­did cruis­ing-ground — A1 scenery — and there ought to be plen­ty of duck about soon, if it gets cold enough. I came out here via Hol­land and the Frisian Islands, start­ing ear­ly in August. My pals have had to leave me, and I’m bad­ly in want of anoth­er, as I don’t want to lay up yet for a bit. I need­n’t say how glad I should be if you could come. If you can, send me a wire to the P.O. here. Flush­ing and on by Ham­burg will be your best route, I think. I’m hav­ing a few repairs done here, and will have them ready sharp by the time your train arrives. Bring your gun and a good lot of No. 4’s; and would you mind call­ing at Lan­cast­er’s and ask­ing for mine, and bring­ing it too? Bring some oil­skins. Bet­ter get the eleven-shilling sort, jack­et and trousers — not the ‘yacht­ing’ brand; and if you paint bring your gear. I know you speak Ger­man like a native, and that will be a great help. For­give this hail of direc­tions, but I’ve a sort of feel­ing that I’m in luck and that you’ll come. Any­way, I hope you and the F.O. both flour­ish. Good-bye.

Yours ever,
Arthur H. Davies.

Would you mind bring­ing me out a pris­mat­ic com­pass, and a pound of Raven mix­ture?

I pulled out the let­ter again, and ran down its impul­sive stac­ca­to sen­tences, affect­ing to ignore what a gust of fresh air, high spir­its, and good fel­low­ship this flim­sy bit of paper waft­ed into the jad­ed club-room. On re-perusal, it was full of evil presage — ‘A1 scenery’ — but what of equinoc­tial storms and Octo­ber fogs? Every sane yachts­man was pay­ing off his crew now. ‘There ought to be duck’ — vague, very vague. ‘If it gets cold enough’ — cold and yacht­ing seemed to be a gra­tu­itous­ly mon­strous union. His pals had left him; why? ‘Not the “yacht­ing” brand’; and why not? As to the size, com­fort, and crew of the yacht — all cheer­ful­ly ignored; so many mad­den­ing blanks. And, by the way, why in Heav­en’s name ‘a pris­mat­ic com­pass’?