The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. XX. No. 1001, March 4, 1899

LIFE IN A FRENCH DUNGEON.

Eight long long months at Bitche!

No wonder Roy Baron was altered. He had left Verdun a careless and light-hearted lad; almost a child still; young in many respects for his age. Eight months at Bitche had snuffed all remnants of childishness out of him.

Sometimes he caught himself wondering if he really were the same Roy Baron, who once had lived in a happy London home, with never a care or a trouble; who had wept salt tears in a Paris bedroom, because Denham had to leave him behind for a few days; who had carried himself with a gay heart through more than three years of Verdun captivity.

The weight of the last eight months amounted to far more than all that had gone before.

Not that the whole of that time had been spent in the great crowded dungeon below. The gendarmes knew better, when a prisoner possessed a little money. The very first morning after Roy’s arrival, he had been conducted above ground, glad enough to go, though grieved to leave little Will Peirce behind; and it had been intimated to him that, if he chose to pay for the benefit, he might be put into a room with a few other prisoners of a better grade. Roy had thankfully availed himself of the chance, and he had done his best to get Will brought up also, but there he had failed.

During more than four months he had lived, monotonously enough, in a barely-furnished room, with half-a-dozen companions—an elderly Naval officer of the rougher sort, a half-pay Colonel, a musician who solaced his own imprisonment and made worse that of others by incessant piping upon a flute, and three well-to-do men in the merchant line. It was a lonely existence for the boy. The men were kind to him, but utterly uncongenial, and they spent most of their time in high play. Roy had no interests, no employments, nothing in common with these men, among whom his lot was cast. The temptation to be drawn in, to find relief from his own thoughts in the excitement of gambling, was often terribly severe; but he remembered always his own reiterated promise to Denham in the past, and he resisted manfully. He was not conquered; and through all his after life Roy Baron was the stronger man for that successful fight in his boyish days. Every victory makes one stronger, every defeat makes one weaker, for the years to follow.

By the end of about four months and a half his money, though carefully husbanded, came to an end; and more had not reached him, as he had confidently expected. He had written repeatedly to his parents and to Ivor; but no answers arrived, and he could not know whether any of his letters had reached their destination. It was as likely as not that all had failed to do so, and that money, sent to him by his father, had been seized en route.

So soon as his means of paying the gendarmes for better prison accommodation ceased, Roy was remanded to the great dungeon.

He took it more quietly than at the first. He was by this time in a manner used to close captivity. Will and the other middies welcomed him warmly; and soon he found that a plan for escape was brewing among them.

No wonder prisoners sought to get away. The life in those dungeons—there were more than one at Bitche—must have been fearful. We, in this more humane age, find it difficult to believe that only ninety years ago imprisonment in noisome dungeons was still in full swing, even in so civilised a country as France. The close damp atmosphere, the crowded space, the lack of quiet, the incessant noise, the absence of subordination among the worse characters of those herded indiscriminately together—all these things were hard to bear.

From eight at night until eight in the morning the three or four hundred prisoners were locked up in their dungeon. At eight in the morning they were turned out—like sheep turned from a pen—into the “yard,” a place about one hundred and thirty paces in length by some thirty in breadth. There they remained until noon, getting what air and exercise they could. At noon once more they were mustered in the dungeon, and at two o’clock they were again turned out into the yard, until the evening. And this is no fancy picture of what went on.

The yard was well known to Roy, since, while living upstairs, he had gone out there daily, meeting many other English prisoners from other rooms, but always at such times as the dungeon inmates were locked in.

The very idea of possible escape from such an existence was naturally welcomed, even though every attempt to get away meant danger to life. Many had escaped; many more were likely enough to do their best for the same end. When Will Peirce, with the consent of his friends, and under strictest vows of secrecy, confided to Roy the plan under discussion, Roy threw himself into it with fervour. Anything to be free!

He stood in the prison-yard one cold day in late autumn, leaning against the wall, with folded arms and abstracted look. A grey sky was overhead, and some drops of half-frozen rain had fallen. Hundreds of prisoners were assembled there; some walking about to keep themselves warm; some leaping or wrestling; some fighting in good earnest; others absorbed in games of chance; while some lounged listlessly, with no spirit to exert themselves. A dull inertia, as of semi-despair, characterised many present.

Yet on the faces of a few, notably on that of Roy Baron, might have been detected a gleam of something like hope, carefully repressed. A blue-eyed little middy was at his side, for he and Will had drawn together, as they seldom failed to do. Will’s high spirits were as helpful to Roy now, as Roy’s in the past had been to Ivor.

Despite that gleam Roy was changed. He had grown taller, thinner, older, than eight months earlier; and the spirit of boyish fun seemed to have passed into almost a man’s gravity.

Some weeks before this, three or four middies had managed to get away, by digging deep underground, undetected by the gendarmes, till they lighted on a subterranean passage, leading away from the fortress. Through this, one day, they had fled to the neighbouring country, making good their escape. It was known by many there that they were gone; and it was conjectured that they had not as yet been re-taken, since, had they been, the whole body of prisoners would certainly have been informed of the fact.

The present scheme was different in kind. About a dozen middies, besides one young lieutenant in the Royal Navy and Roy Baron, were in the plot—all sworn to secrecy. None but active and agile young fellows could have hoped to succeed in what was proposed. They had made a stout rope out of such materials as they could contrive to get together; and with this their intention was to descend from the high outer wall, which wall would first have to be scaled from within. One or two at least would have to reach the top with no help from above, though when they were up the rope could be lowered for the others to use. On the other side of the wall would lie fresh difficulties—watchful sentries, perils of starvation, dangers of being overtaken and of worse treatment than before to follow. Those who failed to get away might expect to be despatched to the fortress of Sédan, for solitary imprisonment. But with the hope of liberty to cheer them on, not one of the number hesitated.

“Two days more of this! Only two days more!” Roy was saying to himself. He hardly dared to look up, when anybody not in the secret came near, so much he feared to suggest by even a cheerful glance that hope had dawned.

“I know what you’re thinking, Roy,” Will muttered, under cover of a noisy fight twenty paces off of a couple of imprisoned professional boxers.

“I’m thinking that this is an awful place!”

“It was a lot worse when you weren’t here. I say!”—lowering his voice—“Just listen. Don’t look as if we were saying anything particular. I say, Roy, mind we keep together. And if—you know what I mean—_if_——”

Roy made a hasty comprehending gesture.

“Yes—if—” he said, taking up Will’s words—“then you tell my people all about it. And if—if it’s the other way—then I tell your people. Eh?”

“Tell ’em I tried to do my duty, all along,” Will said, as manly a note breathing through his hushed tones as if he had measured six feet in length. “And Roy—mind you tell my mother”—the blue eyes showed a sudden moisture—“mind you tell her—I’d never funk anything, if it wasn’t doing what’s wrong. And I haven’t forgot what she said to me when I was leaving home. Tell her that. And I’ve got the little Bible she gave me, and I’ve said my prayers too. I don’t mind telling this to you, because you’re not the sort to jeer at a fellow. Mind, Roy, don’t you forget.”

“And, Will, if it’s the other way—you’ll tell my people—tell ’em I’ve tried too——”

Roy’s voice broke.

“Yes, I know. I’ll tell ’em. I’ll say you’re as brave a chap as any officer in his Majesty’s Navy. Couldn’t say more than that, could I?”

“Only that I’ve tried—that too, you know. And my mother and father—and Molly—and Denham——”

Somebody came nearer, and they dashed into careless talk about nothing in particular.

As it grew dark they were ordered in—all of them—to the dank damp oppressive dungeon, which for several weeks had been Roy’s habitation.

He looked round that night, with a strange moved gaze, when the bulk of the prisoners were asleep, sitting up and clasping his hands round his knees. One more night beside this—only one!—only one!—and then away and away for dear old England, for the land of freedom!

It was worth while making the attempt, even though in that attempt he should die instead of getting away. He was so sick and weary of this long close captivity. He had the craving of a caged bird for light and air, for exercise and active life. At the bare notion of liberty once more, his heart danced and sang. Then he bowed his head on his knees, and he prayed passionately that—if only it might be—he should succeed, and should find his way home—home to Molly, to the dear old country! O the rapture of it!

“For Christ’s sake—for Christ’s sake—O God, let me go; do not let them take me!” he implored.

But prayer, though heard, is not always instantly answered in the manner wished; and sometimes one has to wait a little to know the reason.

Morning dawned, and half of another slow day passed. How slow those unoccupied and dreary days were! Roy could do nothing but hang listlessly about. He could think of nothing but the coming nightfall, when, after dark but before they were ordered back into the souterrain for the night, he and his companions would steal softly away to that high outer wall, and would scale it. All details of the plan thus far had been carefully thought out and arranged. Beyond that most of them were trusting largely to what is called “the chapter of accidents.”

To be free again! O to be free!—free under the blue sky, free to breathe heaven’s breezes, free to sun himself in heaven’s smile, free to stretch his limbs, free to be a light-hearted English boy once more, instead of a careworn man before his time. Roy flung his arms out and clutched the prison wall, in that craving to be away.