Two men in a boat

Robert Gore-Langton on a stage adaptation of the Erskine Childers classic Riddle of the Sands

The Riddle of the Sands was published in 1903. It was an instant bestseller and has never been out of print since. It’s the story of two young Englishmen who, while sailing off the German coast, unearth a fiendish plot to invade Britain. The book is often cited as the first ‘factional’ spy story, one that launched a genre. With its mass of authentic, verifiable detail it set the trend for Fleming, le Carré and the rest. The book includes maps, charts and tide timetables. It’s part patriotic thriller, part advanced sailing course; the explanations of the theory and practice of inshore sailing are perhaps its chief glory, fascinating even to those of us who don’t know a mizzen from a marlinspike.

In the book we meet Carruthers of the Foreign Office, bored of his life in London’s clubland, who takes up an offer to join his old acquaintance Davies on his yacht in Germany. As instructed, he arrives with a prismatic compass, a No. 3 Rippingille stove and a pound of Raven Mixture shag. He is appalled to discover the Dulcibella is a tiny scruffy boat with no crew, but he soon learns how to help handle her and basks confidently in Davies’s masterly seamanship. Their adventures around the East Frisian Islands regenerate his spirits (initially Carruthers is as stale and complacent as Britain herself) and culminate in the thwarting of the baddie Dollman and the German invasion plan.

The author, Erskine Childers (1870–1922), knew every inch of the German and Baltic coast having himself sailed there in his own small yacht. As well as appealing to the pink gin and blazer set with its Boy’s Own-type adventure, the novel caused a frightful stink politically, as its intended aim was to advertise Britain’s total unpreparedness for war.