The Riddle of the Sands
In the Spring of 1901 Arthur Davies is sailing around the Frisian Islands, remapping the sand banks, when he encounters a German ship, the "Medusa" out of Hamburg. He is invited by Clara the daughter of Cpt Dollman (Jenny Agutter) to join the family for dinner and this he does. A relationship begins with the daughter. But he is concerned when the daughter invites him to shore to buy supplies, when he sees a crew member of the German ship exploring his yacht.
He has been invited on a yachting and duck-shooting holiday by an old University acquaintance called Carruthers (Michael York), and he meets this old friend. Davies explains to Carruthers that he has a hidden agenda for the trip.
He narrates further that whilst sailing together along the coast in a gale Dollman had, when Davies had tried to put into a particular estuary for shelter, inexplicably prevented him from entering by executing a deliberately hazardous sea-manoeuvre, to the degree that both their lives had been endangered by it. Davies then reveals to Carruthers that his real interest in the area is that he suspects that the Imperial German Navy is engaged in covert military activity of some nature in the Frisian Islands, with the intention of threatening the security of the North Sea from the British perspective, which the Royal Navy is strategically misdirected to meet, and this is why he has invited Carruthers' presence, given his linguistic ability in Deutsch and professional contacts within Whitehall, on a pre-text of a holiday.
Carruthers and Davies go on, amidst cryptic warnings-off from circling German naval officers, sailing expeditions among the Frisian isles and inlets, and fights, to carry out covert surveillance at the estuary in question, to discover that the II Reich is using a naval base hidden in the islands to carry out rehearsals for a seaborne passage across the North Sea of a German army with the aim of militarily invading England, and that Herr "Dollman" is in fact Lieutenant Thomas, an embittered former Royal Navy officer who is treasonously assisting their preparations with his detailed knowledge of England's coast and naval defences.
After sabotaging one of the rehearsals, whilst escaping to Holland by sea in 2 roped yachts with the information about it, along with a badly wounded Thomson and his family as prisoners, Davies abandons Thomson with his wife in Davies' boat to allow him to return to Germany to seek medical assistance for his wounds at the insistence of Clara, who agrees to accompany Davies and Carruthers back to England in her father's yacht with his papers revealing the German plans in detail. Thomson and his wife are murdered by the pursuing German authorities - led by Kaiser Wilhelm II, in person - when their vessel is rammed and destroyed.
The film ends with the yacht bearing Carruthers, Davies and Clara bound for Holland, with a Carruthers' voiced narration detailing how their return to England with the information would lead to a shift in England's sea defence strategy towards the II Reich, that would avert the threat of war.
intrigue