CHAPTER XXXI
A DASH FOR FREEDOM
THE ecstasy of Xenophon's Ten Thousand at the sight of the sea could not have exceeded the sub's feelings of thankfulness at the distant view of the placid waters of the Adriatic. To him the sea called—the welcome greeting of freedom. Beyond was England, Home, and Beauty—the latter personified in the name of Winifred Greenwood. True, there was a large slice of land intervening, but what mattered that the breadth of Italy and France lay between him and England? The sea was the key to freedom.
Sylvester hardly regarded the expanse of water in the same light. For one thing he was a bad sailor, for another he had grave doubts about being able to make a passage across the huge land-locked sea without being overhauled and recaptured by an enemy craft. Personally he would have preferred hours, perhaps days, of discomfort in the Piave marshes, and take the chance of gaining the Italian lines, rather than trust himself to the mercies of wind, waves, and the enemy craft.
Acting solely off his own bat he was resolute and resourceful; but in the presence of the sublieutenant the latter's forceful personality held almost absolute sway.
"Only another five miles," declared Farrar. "We'll have to go slow. If this coast is patrolled only half so efficiently as that of the British Isles it will be no walk over. When do we discard this gear?"
He indicated the uniform they were wearing: The Moke smiled grimly. Since his chum had been obliged to ask his advice his directive force reasserted itself.
"When we have decent clothes to put on," he replied. "Meanwhile, until we get afloat—and that's where you direct operations—I am still Baron Eitel von Stopelfeld, and you are my Austrian servant and lug my gear. Imagine yourself a fag again, Slogger."
"But my rotten German would give me away as soon as I opened my mouth," objected the sub. "Have you considered that flaw in the contract, Moke, my festive?"