Every mouthful of that meal tasted like angel-food to me, and Huyliger sat on the edge of the bed and watched me enjoying the meal, at the same time outlining the plans he had made for my escape.
In brief, the scheme was to conceal me in a convent until conditions were ripe for me to make my way to the border. In the mean while I was to be dressed in the garb of a priest, and when the time came for me to leave the city I was to pretend that I was a Spanish sailor, because I could speak a little Spanish, which I had picked up on the coast. To attempt to play the part of a Belgian would become increasingly difficult, he pointed out, and would bring inevitable disaster in the event that I was called upon to speak.
Huyliger said I would be given sufficient money to bribe the German guards at the Dutch frontier, and he assured me that everything would work out according to schedule.
"Yours is not the first case, O'Brien, we have handled successfully," he declared. "Only three weeks ago I heard from an English merchant who had escaped from a German detention camp and come to me for assistance, and whom I had been able to get through the lines. His message telling me of his safe arrival in Rotterdam came to me in an indirect way, of course, but the fact that the plans we had made carried through without mishap makes me feel that we ought to be able to do as much for you."
I told Huyliger I was ready to follow his instructions and would do anything he suggested.
"I want to rejoin my squadron as soon as I possibly can, of course," I told him, "but I realize that it will take a certain length of time for you to make the necessary arrangements, and I will be as patient as I can."
The first thing to do, Huyliger told me, was to prepare a passport. He had a blank one and it was a comparatively simple matter to fill in the spaces, using a genuine passport which Huyliger possessed as a sample of the handwriting of the passport clerk. My occupation was entered as that of a sailor. My birthplace we gave as Spain, and we put my age at thirty. As a matter of fact, at that time I could easily have passed for thirty-five, but we figured that with proper food and a decent place to sleep in at night I would soon regain my normal appearance and the passport would have to serve me, perhaps, for several weeks to come.
Filling in the blank spaces on the passport was, as I have said, a comparatively easy matter, but that did not begin to fill the bill. Every genuine passport bore an official rubber stamp, something like an elaborate postmark, and I was at a loss to know how to get over that difficulty.
