"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.