Page:Barbour--For the freedom from the seas.djvu/262

 was and the entrance to the Kiel Canal and the German navy lying behind its network of mines in the land-locked harbors. Heligoland was a word to conjure with, and Nelson peered into a typical North Sea mist as though he meant to penetrate to the distant rock by sheer force of will.

"I bet you it makes England sick," remarked Garey, when Nelson mentioned the German naval base. "She swapped that rock for something, I forgot what, and I guess she wishes now she'd kept it, all right. Gee, it's a cinch for Germany! They say she spent fifty million dollars on it, making fortifications and so on. I'll bet Gibraltar hasn't a thing on Heligoland nowadays. Hundreds of eleven-inch guns they've got there, they say. A lot of good it would be for a fleet to try to shell that! And a fine chance it would have of getting around it. Yah, that man Salisbury played the goat, all right, when he engineered that deal! Wouldn't you think the English would have been afraid to give up an outpost like that?"

"Yes, but suppose England still owned it," objected Nelson. "Could she have held it today? It's almost within gun range of the shore, isn't it?"

"About forty miles, I guess. Sure, she could 237