THE FREEDOM OF THE SEAS
have held it. All she had to do was fortify it just as Germany has done"
"But maybe Germany would have objected to another power fortifying a place so close."
"Suppose she did object? What could she have done about it?"
"Why, I don't know. Appeal to the Hague"
"Hah! You make me laugh," jeered Garey. "If England had kept that rock in the sea this war would be over."
"Really? Why?"
"Because Heligoland commands the mouth of the Kiel Canal and all the harbors along the coast in that corner where Germany has her ships hiding! Cuxhaven, Wilhelmshaven and Friedrichskoog, and the mouth of the Elbe that leads to Hamburg; and the Weser, too. Why, Germany couldn't have found a place on the Atlantic coast that the English couldn't have shelled her out of! As it is now Heligoland gives her a fine anchorage for warships, a base for submarines and airships and Zeppelins and destroyers and a signal outpost. They've got searchlights on Heligoland, they say, that'll pick up a dory twenty miles away! Talk about your soft snaps! Germany's got the softest ever. She ought to include Lord Salisbury
238
