Chapter XXIV: A Bitter Experience

THAT march from Verdun to Bitche! If Roy Baron should live to be a hundred years old, the bitterness of it would stand out still pre-eminent in his memory.

He had at first only three English companions, middle-aged men, masters of merchantmen, accused of trying to escape from close confinement in the dungeon of the "Tour d'Angoulême" of the Verdun citadel. There, for no apparent reason beyond caprice, they had been flung by the Commandant's orders, and thence they were now no less arbitrarily remanded to the worse dungeons of Bitche.

At the first halting-place they were joined by a second and larger company—a party of English sailors, manacled two and two, like criminals. Sailors of the Royal Navy, Roy knew at a glance; and he caught a glimpse also of three or four middies behind them. Then his attention was called off, as, to his unutterable wrath, he found himself also on the point of being put into fetters.

Roy Baron—son of a Colonel in His Majesty's Guards—to be handcuffed!

The blood rushed to his face, then receded, leaving him as white as his own shirt-front. He clenched his hands fiercely; and the merchantman Captain who had addressed him at the first came a step nearer.

"Sir, it'll be worse for you if you resist! I wouldn't, sir—I wouldn't, really!"

As if in echo Roy seemed to hear Denham's voice. "For your mother's sake—" he had said. If Roy endured patiently, he might be the sooner sent back to her.

The frank weather-beaten face of the sailor wore an anxious look. Roy said gravely, "Thank you, Captain," and submitted, though not without a sting of hot tears smarting under his eyelids at the indignity.

Then he flung himself flat on the ground, passionately hiding his face in those manacled hands, and refusing the coarse food that was offered to him. He had money in his possession, but Denham had advised him to be in no haste to betray the fact.

"Never you mind," a voice said at his side, clear and chirpy as the note of a robin. "There's nothing to be ashamed of, you know. 'Tis not our fault. The shame is for them, not us. Cheer up, comrade."

The combined childishness and manliness of the voice made an odd impression upon Roy. He pulled himself up, and found one of the middies close by—a lad, perhaps two years his junior, with a rosy face. Roy stared at him in bewilderment.

"You'd better eat while you can. None too good fare, eh?" —with the same droll assumption of manliness. "As for these—" and he lifted his little brown manacled hands—"it only shows that we're Englishmen. Ain't you proud of that? I am!" Then a pause, and a return stare. "I say! My eyes!"

"I say!" echoed Roy. "Why, you're as like as two peas to—"

"You're Roy Baron, as I'm alive!"

"And I declare it's Will Peirce!"

The two tongues went fast. As little boys they had played together, romped together, worked mischief together; but for nearly five years the two had not met.

"We weren't beaten in fair fight—don't think it," asserted Will, with his chirrupy cheerfulness. "Got caught in a trap. Damaged in a gale off Finisterre; and when 'twas as much as we could do to keep afloat, two seventy-four gun frigates bore down on us. If she'd answered to her helm, we'd have had the best of it, spite of all. But though we made a hard fight, 'twas no go. They raked us fore and aft, and we got riddled through and through. So we had to give in. I say, you set to work and eat. We've got a long way to go."

Roy followed the counsel of experienced boyhood, and was the better for food. Will's familiar face brought comfort.

On again they marched, the middies and Roy handcuffed; the sailors chained two and two. The boys kept up a brave heart, no matter how weary and footsore they became. Roy held out as resolutely as any one.

Later, when another halt was made, a third company awaited them. A company of—were they prisoners? These were French faces, sullen and downcast, with French dress. Yet they too were coupled together by connecting chains. They too were under an escort of gendarmes.

"Are they convicts?" exclaimed Roy, and a ship-master replied, "Bless you, no, sir. These are conscripts for the Emperor's grand Army. Dragged from their homes, belike, without a will-he nor a nill-he, and driven to war, like sheep to the shambles."

"Poor wretches!" remarked Will, with his experienced air. "I've seen a lot of 'em before on our way across France."

"Sure enough, sir, and so have I. Times and again. Looking as sheepish and as down in the mouth as a man can. Don't make much wonder, neither, seeing they're dragged away from their homes, with never a chance of getting off. O they'll make smart soldiers enough, I'll be bound, and good food for shot too, with a few months of drill; and be as ready as any Frenchman of them all to rave about 'le petit Caporal.' And the mothers and the sweethearts may bear the parting as best they can, and the land may go uncultivated; and what does Boney care, so long as he has his way?"

The chained and dejected conscripts followed after the prisoners, when the march was resumed.

Day after day, week after week, it lasted. A hundred leagues were not to be quickly covered by a large number of men and boys of varying powers. Many of them, used to shipboard life, were unaccustomed to long tramps. There were tender feet and aching limbs among them; and matters grew steadily worse. Some broke down altogether, and had to be conveyed in rough springless carts. Those who had no money were fed mainly on black bread and water. At night, when they halted, they were put into the common prison of the place, no matter what kind of prison it might be. Often they were confined in the criminal cells, suffering miseries from heat and lack of air. Not seldom too their only couch was filthy straw, alive with insects. Weary as Roy might be, he could not sleep amid such surroundings.

He guarded carefully the money with which he had been abundantly supplied by his father, not allowing others to know that he had more than a purse of loose coins for immediate use. Impulsive Roy would hardly have been so reticent, but for parting injunctions. Like Ivor, he was naturally generous; and since the middies were ill supplied with cash, he gladly shared the contents of his purse with them.

At length the long march came to an end. Bitche was reached—a grim and solemn fortress, sheltering already hundreds of British prisoners. The fortress was built upon a rocky height, below which lay the small town.

Upward and upward the prisoners mounted, by a sharply zigzag way, passing one drawbridge after another, each strongly guarded. Roy and the middies were first taken to the "Petite Tête," so-called, where they underwent a severe searching. Roy's hidden supply of money was detected in this operation; and though he was not deprived of it, he knew that thenceforward the gendarmes would look upon him as their lawful prey.

He and the middies were then led through gloomy passages, down into the great dungeon. This, as well as the smaller dungeon, had been originally dug out of the solid saltpetre rock, being at least thirty feet below the surface of the ground. At first meant as a safe retreat for the garrison during a bombardment, they had of late been used as receptacles for English prisoners. The smaller cavern was in theory kept for officers, the larger for private soldiers and sailors "before the mast." But this rule was often and widely departed from, as Roy discovered; for he with the middies was conducted to the large souterrain.

In a huge vault, where sunlight never entered, where the dim daylight had to be always supplemented by candles, where the atmosphere was heavy and dank, where water dripped from the roof or ran down the walls, might be found a motley crowd of about three hundred captives. English soldiers, English sailors, English middies, détenus from Verdun and elsewhere, mingled with French swindlers, pickpockets, and highwaymen—this was the society into which Roy Baron was thrust.

With the descent down and down those stone steps, his heart sank lower and lower. How long might he have to wait for his next glimpse of the outside world?

An outburst of uproarious cheering greeted the new arrivals, as the heavy door was unlocked, and they were ushered in. Three cheers were given; then each was hoisted on the shoulders of three or four men, and was paraded round the dungeon. After this rough welcome came a severe blanket-tossing, which Roy and the middies were wise enough to take in good part. Any who wished to fight were then cordially invited to do so; and, lastly, those who had money were called upon to treat others to drink.

Such ceremonies being ended, comparative quiet descended on the scene. It was past eight o'clock when first they arrived, and night was near.

Roy Baron's first night in a French dungeon!

Each prisoner was provided with a worn blanket, cast off by a French soldier. Wrapped in these, the crowd of over three hundred men and boys laid themselves down to rest. Some slumbered silently; some tossed to and fro; some talked or shouted in their sleep; some snored loudly. Roy at first had rejected his ragged blanket with scorn; but these subterranean regions were cold, and reeking with damp. Shivering, he at length drew it round him, as he lay with arms crossed, and face pressed into them. The handcuffs had been removed in the guard-room.

He was not thinking of the bruises he had received, when the rough blanket-tossers had allowed him to drop upon the stone floor. Bruises to a hardy boy are a small matter. But the desolation of the lad that awful night went beyond bounds; and desperate blank despair took possession of him.

For hours he hardly stirred. He could not sleep. He could only lie in a trance of misery. He saw no gleam of hope, no chance of escape from this terrible place. Yet, to stay on here, week after week, month after month, perhaps year after year—could he bear it? Through all previous troubles Roy had borne up bravely; but at last his spirit gave way beneath the strain.

Molly's face came up before his mind. Not Molly, a sedate maiden, but Molly the little eager child, whom he remembered. O to see her again! Roy pressed his face closer into the folded arms.

Then his mother! He hardly dared to think of her. What would she not suffer? Unknowing indeed what her boy had to endure, but fearing the worst. Would any picturings of hers approach the reality?

A craving for Denham had him next in its grasp. If Denham had but been arrested too—had but come with him! But this unworthy wish lasted not ten seconds. Upon it followed a nobler rush of gladness that Denham was not here. The worn face came up before Roy, as he had seen it last at Verdun; and below his breath he sobbed in an ecstasy of thankfulness that at least Denham would be in comparative comfort, that at least Denham had not to be in this dungeon.

"Think how your mother will be praying for you."

Was Denham speaking? Roy seemed to hear the words, not only with his mind, but with his bodily ears.

He sat up and looked round upon the slumbering throng—looked with smarting eyes into the gloom. He gazed into the blackness overhead, where a stone roof shut him pitilessly in.

Was his mother praying for him then? Would God hear her petitions?

Denham's voice, deep and quiet, seemed again to breathe around him—"Remember! God is over all!" How long ago was it that he had said those words? Was it—when he was ordered off to Valenciennes?

God over all! Ay, even here; even in this dungeon.

Roy dropped down again, face foremost; and through heaving sobs, not one of which was allowed to make itself heard, he joined his prayers to those of his mother.