Not on Parole
"Ver' goot. I understan' you no give parole?"
"No, sir," replied the Flight-Sub firmly.
"An' you, mynheer?"
"I am in the same boat, sir," replied Ross.
The camp-commandant smiled--a hearty smile, bordering on a laugh.
"Goot, I understan' also," he reiterated. Then, shaking a podgy little
finger, he added: "Same boat, ah? English idiomatic expression? Ver'
well, it is so; but if you make escape, do not let me you catch. Zat
is all."
A week had elapsed since the involuntary descent of the sea-plane.
Both officers were making rapid progress towards recovery, for, in
spite of the violence of the impact, neither of them had received
anything worse than contusions and bruises.
After three days in hospital at Utrecht, the interned aviators were
transferred to a small concentration camp at the village of Koedijk, a
short distance from Alkmaar. A few miles to the westward, and beyond
an expanse of sand dunes, was the North Sea. The temptation to refuse
to give their parole was not to be wondered at, with the call of the
sea so near at hand. It was, indeed, rather remarkable that the two
officers had not been sent to the large internment camp at Groningen,
where so many of the ill-fated Naval Brigade languished, if not in
captivity, in a state of enforced and tedious detention.
"We'll have to be doubly careful now," remarked the Flight-Sub. "The
mere fact that we have declined to give our parole will put the
commandant on his guard. Our best plan will be to mark time for a bit."
"Marking time is always an unsatisfactory business," protested the
energetic Ross. "Nothing rusts a fellow like inaction. It wouldn't be
much of a task to tunnel our way out."
The Flight-Sub shook his head.
"Tunnelling's not much good in this water-logged country," he declared.
"We are not water-rats. Patience, my festive: where there's a will
there's a way."
Their quarters consisted of a long, two-storied building. The only
other occupants beside the guards, were three British Naval officers
rescued from a mined trawler that had managed to reach Dutch waters
before foundering. Two of them had broken legs; the third was down
with double pneumonia, the legacy of many a cold, stormy night in the
North Sea.
Surrounding the house was a high brick wall, on which had been recently
placed a triple row of barbed wire. At the entrance, an archway about
ten feet in height, stood a wooden sentry-box, where a soldier with
rifle and fixed bayonet kept guard in the leisurely manner of the
stolid Dutch menfolk. One could imagine him, a picturesque figure in
baggy trousers and coat of fantastic cut, smoking his pipe on the quay
at Volendam. The blue uniform did not form a fitting mantle for his
corpulent form.
The sentry was one of a type. The rest of the guards--middle-aged men
called up on mobilization--were much of the same build and demeanour.
Their innate love of gossiping tempted them to be on most friendly
terms with the interned officers. One and all were violently
pro-British. They had reason to dread the German menace, for they were
level-headed enough to realize that, with the Central Powers
triumphant, the independence of Holland would be a thing of the past.
Adjoining the grounds were the quarters occupied by interned seamen, to
the number of about sixty. They were strictly guarded; a formidable
double fence of barbed wire, between which armed sentries patrolled,
enclosed the premises. For discipline, the men were under the orders
of their own petty officers.
"Jolly good luck to you!" exclaimed one of the wounded officers, to
whom the two new-comers confided their intention of escaping. "If we
three weren't crocked we should have been across the ditch by this
time."
He pointed seawards as he spoke. From the upper windows of the
building the sunlit sea could be seen. Beyond the "ditch", as he
termed it, was England and freedom.
"It's no use trying to break out," he continued. "German spies as
thick as blackberries along the coast. The most benevolent-looking
mynheer might, as likely as not, be a kultured Hun. You have to be
smuggled out. Try your blandishments on old Katje."
"Old who?" asked the Flight-Sub.
"Katje, the old vrouw who calls for the washing. She comes every
Tuesday and Friday with a cart drawn by dogs, and a basket big enough
to stow the pair of you. You'll want plenty of palm oil. There are
the sentries to be squared, and the fellow who provides you with a suit
of 'mufti'. Wilson, our Lieutenant-Commander, got clear about a month
ago. He made his way to Ymuiden."
"Wasn't there a row about it?" asked Ross.
"Naturally," replied the wounded officer. "We had a pretty strenuous
time after it--certain privileges withdrawn and all that sort of thing.
However, when we heard that Wilson had succeeded in making his way to
England we didn't mind that, and things have now recovered their normal
appearance."
On the following Tuesday, Ross and his companion anxiously awaited the
arrival of Vrouw Katje. At length the old lady--she was nearly
eighty--drove up in style, shouting shrilly to her dogs from her perch
on top of an enormous wicker hamper.
"More washing for you, Katje," announced one of the crippled officers.
"Two more of my countrymen. They will be very pleased to see you."
Without further ado, Katje ascended the stairs and hammered violently
upon the door of the sitting-room.
Her knowledge of English was good, for earlier in life she was the wife
of the skipper of a bolter that made regular voyages to Hole Haven at
the mouth of the Thames, where a large eel trade was in the hands of
the Dutch fishermen.
"Very well; but I must ask permission of the Commandant," replied
Katje, in perfect good faith, when the Flight-Sub had broached the
subject of being conveyed from the internment camp.
"No, no," protested the young officer in alarm; "that won't do."
"Why not?" persisted the washerwoman. "Mynheer the Commandant is very
kind."
"Undoubtedly," replied the Flight-Sub. "But we would much rather that
you wait until we are away from the place before you ask him. See,
here are five English sovereigns. They are yours once you get us
clear."
The vrouw shook her head.
"I do not care to," she replied firmly; then without a pause she
continued: "My son-in-law, Jan van Beverwijk, will. I am sure he will.
Next Friday he will come instead of me. He is mate of a steamship that
takes the bulbs from Holland to England. He returns to-morrow, and
sails on Saturday from Ymuiden."
"That sounds excellent," commented the Flight-Sub.
"It is excellent," agreed Katje. "It will cost you each twenty English
sovereigns."
"But we haven't ten between us."
The vrouw smiled till her weather-beaten face was one mass of deep
wrinkles.
"You English have a proverb about a road," she remarked.
"'It's a long lane that has no turning?'" quoted the officer; but Katje
shook her head.
"'Where there's a will there's a way'," suggested Ross.
"Ah! That is it. I knew it was something about a road or a lane.
Way, you call it. Very well; by next Friday you will find a way."
"Artful old baggage!" exclaimed the Flight-Sub when Katje had taken her
departure. "She's mighty keen on the rhino. We'll have to have a whip
round, Trefusis, and give a note of hand."
Their brothers in adversity willingly responded to the call, and before
the eventful Friday a sum in English and Dutch coinage, equivalent to
forty pounds, was ready to be handed to Jan van Beverwijk.
"I wouldn't pay cash on the nail if I were you," suggested the crippled
officer who had been so useful in advising them before. "Half down,
and the rest when you land in England. Jan might object, but he'll
give in. No Dutchman of his standing would shut his eyes to twenty in
hard cash."
At eight o'clock on Friday morning Katje's dog-team romped up; but,
instead of the old vrouw, a lean, leather-faced man with a long coat
reaching to his heels and a flat-topped peak cap strode beside the cart.
At the gate he stopped, and spoke at considerable length with the
sentry. There was hardly any expression on the faces of the two men as
they talked. Whether the soldier fell in with the suggestion, Ross,
who was anxiously watching from the window, could not decide.
Presently Jan stooped to fasten the strap of one of his _klompen_, or
wooden shoes; then shouting to the dogs he came towards the house.
Before he had gone very far, the sentry bent and picked up something
that was lying on the spot where Jan had been attending to his footgear.
"Palm oil!" remarked the Flight-Sub laconically.
"Heavy wash to-day," was Jan's greeting as he deposited his heavy
basket in the corridor. "Spot cash, down on the nail."
"Your knowledge of English is remarkable," said the Flight-Sub affably.
"It has to be," rejoined the Dutchman stolidly.
"We have only twenty pounds," declared the Sub. "That we will give you
as soon as we are on board and in English waters. The balance Mr.
Brown will give you on your return, on receipt of a note from us to the
effect that we are safely home."
"It cannot be done," said Jan.
"Then the deal's off," remarked the Flight-Sub coolly; but he
ostentatiously poured the coins from his right hand into his left
before returning them to his pocket.
The Dutchman capitulated.
"Very good," he said. "I can trust an English Naval officer, although
many a time have I been done in London. Get in, one of you."
"But the other?" enquired the Sub.
"I am strong, but I am not a Hercules," replied the Dutchman with a
shrug of his shoulders. "One I can carry to the cart. To-day is a
heavy wash, so I must return for a second load. You twig?"
"In you get, Trefusis," ordered his companion, in a tone that would
brook no refusal.
By dint of hunching his shoulders and bending his knees, Ross managed
to get into the basket. The lid was shut, and Jan, assisted by the
Sub, lifted the heavy load on to his shoulders.
Jolting over the cobble-stones, the cart proceeded at a rapid pace for
nearly a quarter of an hour. Then Jan called to the dogs to stop. The
lid was thrown back and Ross told to get out.
He found himself outside a small cottage by the side of a canal. Katje
was on her knees washing a bundle of clothes; the operation assisted,
with disastrous results to the interned officers' effects, by means of
two large stones with which she pounded the saturated garments.
Without even turning her head to watch the midshipman's exit from the
basket, she proceeded vigorously with her task.
Jan led him into the cottage and pointed to a heap of clothes.
"Put these on you," he said. "I will now go for your friend."
Before the Flight-Sub rejoined him, Ross was rigged out as a Dutch
youth, in voluminous trousers, long coat, stock, tall cylindrical hat,
green stockings, and wooden shoes. His companion had to look twice
before he recognized him.
"Now you come with me to Mynheer Guit," said Jan. "He is a bulb
merchant, and lives just outside Ymuiden. You will then go on board a
barge that brings the boxes of bulbs from Mynheer Guit's warehouse to
the ship. I will be with you. The men in the barge will say nothing.
Before to-night you will be safe on board the _Hoorn_."
Jan was as good as his word. That night the fugitives slept
comfortably in the cabin of the mate of the steamship _Hoorn_; and at
tide-time, early on Saturday morning while it was still dark, the
vessel glided between the breakwater of Ymuiden, and shaped a course
for the mouth of the Thames.