*CHAPTER X*
*A PRISONER OF FRANCE*
Next morning Jack was awakened early and told that he must march.
"Very happy," he said, "but where to?"
He had recovered his spirits. No misfortunes, no bufferings, can longdepress a healthy boy of sixteen. Consequently when he learned that hewas to tramp to Boulogne, more than fifty miles away, he received theinformation with a smile. His chief thought was: "Perhaps I shall seethat Monstair, Boney himself!" The prospect of a fifty-mile walk inkeen, bright weather did not daunt him.
He was accompanied by the skipper of the lugger and several of the men.Now that they were on French soil they had lost their reluctance totalk, and before many miles had been covered Jack was chatting as freelyas his command of the language permitted, and laughing at themisunderstandings that occurred on both sides. He learned one fact thatmade him feel sorry. A few days before, Admiral Keith had exploded somevessels among a hundred and fifty of the French praams at theiranchorage outside the pier at Boulogne. But this attempt to destroy theflotilla had not succeeded, the vessels having been separated bydistances too wide for the explosion to have the destructive effectintended. The French smugglers were much elated at Admiral Keith'sfailure, and amused Jack by their confident assertion that before longBonaparte, or the Emperor Napoleon, as he was beginning to be called,would make himself King of England.
Boulogne was reached at the end of the second day's march. Jack wastaken to a commissary of the forces. He did not learn till some timeafterward what story the skipper told. It was to the effect that hislugger, while making for Boulogne from St. Malo, had been becalmed offBarfleur, within sight of an English frigate which lay about two milesastern. A boat had been sent from the frigate to capture the lugger.Attempting to board, the English crew had been driven back with severeloss, and this young officer, who had been foremost of the boardingparty, had been left in the Frenchmen's hands.
Whether the commissary believed the story Jack never knew. Certainly itwas acted upon. He was handed over to the keeper of the town prison, andlodged in the cells below the old belfry tower. Next day, however, hewas removed and conveyed under a guard a few miles westward towardEtaples. As he left the belfry with other prisoners amid an escort ofgendarmes, he saw riding up the hill towards Wimereux a group ofhorsemen, led by a stout little soldier in brilliant uniform. Thegendarmes saluted; the little man gave a curt and carelessacknowledgment, and cantered on. It was Bonaparte himself, riding toreview the army he was collecting for the invasion of England. Jackrecognized him by his likeness to the caricatures he had seen at home.
"'Tis something to have seen the wonderful Boney!" he thought.
Not far from Etaples he was placed with a number of other prisoners, allEnglish seamen, in an old chateau about a mile from the sea. It hadevidently been at one time a pleasant country-house, but from its partlydilapidated condition Jack inferred that it had suffered during therevolutionary riots thirteen or fourteen years before. It was now usedas an overflow prison, the regular prisons of the town being filled.The English prisoners in France always outnumbered the French prisonersin England, owing to the greater enterprise of English seamen, whichoften led them to attempt impossible feats and threw them into the powerof the enemy.
The prisoners were kept on the top floor of the chateau, several roomshaving been knocked into one. The windows were barred; there were twostories beneath; outside, the walled park all round the house wasregularly patrolled by sentries; and there was a guard constantly at thegate. The wall bordering the grounds was about nine feet high andspiked at the top. These facts were at once noted by Jack, for theinstant he was shut up he began to think of escape; but the outlook wasnot promising.
If he wished to escape at the first, his longing was intensified after afew days of prison regime. There were about seventy prisonersaltogether, and twenty jailers. The treatment was not far short ofbrutal. The prisoners had to sleep on coarse pallets of straw, thestalks cut so short that they were like beds of spikes. The foodconsisted of nothing but brown bread and more or less dirty water. Oneand a half sous a day were allowed by the government to each prisonerfor the purchase of extra food--a miserably insufficient sum; yet, pooras it was, it more often found its way into the pockets of the jailersthan into those of the prisoners. The rooms were never properlycleaned, and the jailers thought nothing of bullying and assaultingbrutally any man who had the audacity to grumble.
Jack had the good luck to be spared some of the worst hardships. He wasallowed the use of a small room off the larger one--a kind ofantechamber, the partition of which was only half demolished where theseparate rooms had been knocked into one for the reception of theprisoners. A door opened directly on the staircase; it was kept closed,and it had a grating through which the sentry on duty could watch whatwas going on.
The warders, drafted from two companies of infantry in the neighboringtown, were relieved daily. This was a precaution taken, no doubt, toprevent them from getting tired of their job and relaxing in theirwatchfulness. At all hours of the night the steady tramp of thesentries round the house could be heard by wakeful prisoners above. Andmany were wakeful, for their poor fare was ill calculated to encouragesleep, and as the days passed they shivered with the cold. It did notoccur to the officer in command, a rough-tongued captain who hadapparently risen from the ranks, to provide a fire; and when one of theprisoners ventured to ask for one, he got a snubbing.
Jack was the only officer among the captives. He learned afterward thatofficers were often liberated on parole, but this was entirely in thediscretion of the district commandant, and Jack was unlucky in cominginto the hands of a bully. He tried to keep cheerful, but it was hard insuch depressing surroundings. The only pleasant part of the day was theshort interval allowed for exercise in the park. A space was roped offwithin which the prisoners might run or walk; it was a considerabledistance from the wall, and sentries with loaded muskets stood on guard.There was thus no chance of making a dash for liberty; but theopportunity of stretching their legs in the open for twenty minutes wasa boon to men accustomed to the freedom of life on the sea.
Thus four months passed. Every day was like another. A little newscame to the prisoners at times through the jailers--how further attemptsto destroy the flotilla of praams at Boulogne had been defeated; how theEnglish had attacked in vain Fort Rouge at Calais Harbor; how Napoleonhad been at last crowned emperor by the pope in the church of NotreDame. But the news which Jack eagerly awaited, of a great victory wonby Admiral Nelson at sea, never came.
One day in February, when snow was falling, a new batch of prisoners wasbrought in, to the disgust of the others, for the room was alreadyovercrowded. But Jack was pleased and vexed at once to see that the newarrivals were no other than Babbage, Turley, and a dozen more from the_Fury_.
"Well! I never did see!" ejaculated the bo'sun, when Jack hailed him."Bless my eyes, sir, but I thought as you was gone to glory--leastwaysto Davy Jones, and so did we all. How did you go for to come to thishere dirty old hulk of a French prison, sir?"
Jack told the whole story.
"What happened to you and the boat?" he asked.
"Why, sir, we waited for you three hours or more, as we was bid, andwhen you didn't come back, I said as how we ought to go up along andfind you."
"No, you didn't!" interrupted Turley; "that was me. You said our orderswas to wait for Mr. Hardy three hours, and the three hours being up,'twas our dooty to go back and tell Mr. Blake. There, then, oldSparrow-grass!"
Evidently Turley supposed that on French ground the claims of disciplinemight be ignored. But he was mistaken.
"What do you mean by Sparrow-grass?" demanded Jack as sternly as hecould.
"Well, sir, I know that his rightful name is Ben Babbage, but amongourselves, sir, when we thinks of it, we calls him Turnip--"
"That'll do, Turley. You'll call Mr. Babbage by his r
ight name, hereand anywhere else; remember that. Go on, Babbage."
"Well, sir, as I was saying, I said as how we ought to go up along andfind you. So go we did; but though we spent a couple of hoursa-prowling round that there tower, and about the village, and went up tothe Grange and all, never a word did we hear of you. So we had to giveit up, and we went back and reported you missing to Mr. Blake. He putin at Luscombe himself, and raised a deal of dust, sir, but 'twas nogood. So he reported you to the admiral at Portsmouth as missing, andwe got another officer in your place, a slack-twisted young--beg pardon,sir, I was a-going to do what Turley done, sir, call names; but Iwon't--leastways, not in your hearing, sir."
"And how did you become prisoners, too?"
"Why, sir, a Mounseer's sloop set on us t'other day when we was runningbefore a stiff gale. The poor little _Fury's_ topmast was carried awayand the mainmast sprung. The sloop hugged us till the wind dropped;then she came up alongside and boarded. She had three times our number,and they must have bred different Frenchmen in the days when oneEnglishman was equal to three; we did our best, as you may believe; shelost half her men, but the other half was still double what was left ofus, so we had to haul down our colors, in a manner of speaking. Mr.Blake and the new midshipman have been marched off, I did hear, to aplace called Verdun; here's the rest of us, what was left, and if you'lllook out of the window, you'll see the poor little _Fury_ lying off thequay there. I s'pose they'll patch her up and call her by a new name,and that's enough to make any Englishman's blood boil, it is."
Jack was angry as Babbage at the success of the sloop in capturing thecutter. But he felt somewhat cheered at the sight of the faces of hismessmates; and their presence, strangely enough, set him again thinkingof escape. Babbage was a seasoned and knowing old salt, and Jackresolved to have a long and private talk with him at the firstopportunity.
But though in the course of a week they had many such talks--in the parkwhile exercising, in the little antechamber at dead of night--theyalmost despaired of hitting upon any likely plan of regaining theirliberty. There was no chance of silencing the sentries at the head ofthe staircase; any attempt to break open the door would at once be heardoutside, and the whole force of warders, all soldiers, would be on thealert. The bars across the windows might indeed be loosened or forciblywrenched out, and the bedclothes--if the material of which they weremade was not too poor--might be torn up and knotted to form a rope; buta small light was kept burning in the room all night, and any work atthe windows would certainly be seen by the sentries at the door and bythe men patrolling outside.
"Ah now! if only brother Sol was here!" sighed Babbage one evening, whenJack and he had been talking over every plan that suggested itself,possible and impossible.
"What could he do?" asked Jack.
"'Twas a saying of his, sir, 'Nary a way in but a way out,' though Isaid to him, 'What about a mouse-trap?' Ah, brother Sol 'ud see the wayout of this here trap if any man could."
"Well, I wish this brother Sol of yours would get himself captured andcome here. Where is he?"
"I don't know, sir; I haven't seed him for four and twenty year. Butwell I mind the last thing he said to me when he went away. 'Ben,' sayshe, 'God bless you!' I never forgot them feeling words, sir."
"I suppose not. As he isn't here we must do without him. We _must_ getout somehow, Babbage. I, for one, am not going to rot in France forhalf a dozen years. Is there anything we haven't thought of?"
Babbage pursed his lips and pondered.
"We've thought of everything from window to ground," he said presently."The only thing we haven't thought of is the roof, and we want to godown, not up--leastways, not yet."
"I don't know. What about the chimney?"
"No good, sir. Haven't I seed the sergeant of the guard poke his noseup every day to see if the bars are safe? They're just fixed so that nonat'ral man's head could pass between. Must ha' bin done a purpose."
"Does the sergeant examine them carefully?"
"No, sir; he just stoops down, and cocks his head around, and gives asquint up, and many's the time I'd ha' liked to take advantage of thesitivation to kick him, only I thought I'd better not. 'Kicks is poortricks,' too, as brother Sol used to say."
"Well, I'll come into your room to-night, and have a look at them.Luckily the chimney is on the same side as the door; the sentry won'tsee me. We might be able to loosen those bars and clear the chimney."
"And what then, sir?"
"I'd climb the roof and take a look round. Can't say more at present."
"Very good, sir."
In the small hours Jack crept quietly into the larger room and got intothe chimney unobserved. The bars were just above his head, and he verysoon decided that with a sufficiently hard implement he could loosen themortar about their ends. That was the doubtful matter. The knivessupplied to a few of the prisoners who were given meat for their dinnerwere removed by the jailers after the meal, and all weapons had ofcourse been taken from the men before they were brought into the room.But next morning Jack managed to force a long rusty nail out of one ofthe planks of the floor of his room; it seemed to him stout and strongenough for his purpose.
It was necessary to take the rest of the prisoners into his confidence.He got Babbage to tell them what he had in view, and as they were allEnglishmen, with just as keen a longing for liberty as himself, therewas no fear of their betraying him. As soon as the jailers haddistributed the morning rations he slipped into the chimney. Half adozen of the men, gathered as if casually near the fireplace, screenedhim from any one who might suddenly enter the room. He began to scrapeaway the mortar at one end of each of the bars, working as quickly as hecould. Turley swept up with his hand the flakes of mortar that fell tothe floor. By the evening Jack had worked so well that one bar wasloosened sufficiently to be bent down when the time came. Then he gotsome of the men to tear off scraps of their woolen shirts, and withthese he filled up the holes, so that even if the bar was tested by thesergeant there was a good chance that it would hold well enough toprevent discovery.
The scraping occupied him for two more days--one bar a day. By the timehe had finished he found that the nail which had served him so well wasworn to within half an inch of the head.
He determined to make an expedition up the chimney on that thirdevening, if circumstances proved favorable. After the evening meal ofbread and water he got Ben to use his strength in bending down the bars.Then he crawled through and began to ascend. It was a tight fit. Thechimney was narrow; but Jack, never stout, had grown thin on the prisonfare, and he wormed his way up by the aid of projecting bricks left forthe chimney-sweep; those were the days of chimney climbing. The fluewas not very dirty; evidently no fires had been lighted below for a longtime.
He reached the top without mishap. There was no chimney-pot. Lookingcautiously out, showing as little of his head as possible, he saw thesea rippling far below in the distance, shining ruddy in the glow of thesetting sun. A strong easterly breeze was blowing. To the right laythe harbor and town. To the left were two sloops and three or fourpraams; alongside the nearest sloop a coasting brig; then two fishingsmacks. A cable's length from these lay the _Fury_, now apparentlyrefitted with new main- and topmasts, and eastward of her, a littlefarther out, a lugger and another smack. Jack guessed that, besides the_Fury_, only the sloops and the praams were likely to be armed withcannon, though the lugger might carry a small gun.
The immediate surroundings of the chateau were out of sight, except tohis left, being screened by the parapet of the flat roof some feet awayfrom the chimney. Except at one point, where the roof of an outbuildingrose nearly to the same elevation as the part where he was perched,there was a sheer drop of fifteen feet from the top of thechimney-stack.
It was a sloping roof, and Jack made up his mind to crawl down it untilhe came to a chimney of the outbuilding, from which a thin spiral ofsmoke was rising. But he waited until the dusk had deepened before hethought it
safe to emerge. Then he crept carefully down till he reachedthe smoking chimney. The roof there was not quite as high as the other;the drop was about five feet; and he guessed from the position thatbelow the chimney were the servants' quarters. Two other chimneys beyondwere smoking; these, he thought, must belong to the rooms occupied bythe guard. The other chimneys, from which no smoke was rising, couldonly be reached by dropping some twelve feet and climbing an equaldistance; and to do that would involve the risk of being seen or heard.
Jack placed his hand on the side of the chimney from which a thin smokewas coming. There was so little heat in the bricks that he guessed thefire below had been allowed to die down. His guess was confirmed whenhe put his hand in the air over the mouth of the chimney: it wasscarcely warm. He resolved to climb down and find out whither thechimney led. Thin as it was, the smoke in the narrow space was rathersuffocating, and he felt a certain dread lest he should cough and betrayhis presence. There seemed no end to the chimney, as step by step helet himself down, moving with extreme caution to avoid making any soundthat could be heard below. As he approached the bottom he was relievedto find that the heat did not perceptibly increase. The fire must bealmost dead. He was dislodging soot from the walls; would it be seen bythe persons in the room? Perhaps if they saw it they would think it dueto the strong wind. Perhaps there was nobody in the room. He heard novoices, no sound of movement, though he saw there was a light. Thechimney was a good deal wider at the point he had reached, and hewondered if it led to the kitchen.
Waiting a little to make sure that the room was unoccupied, he at lengthventured to slip down to the grate and peep into the room. It was emptyof people. A large table stood in the middle; kitchen utensils hungfrom pegs on the walls; the door was ajar, and he now heard voices,proceeding evidently from an adjoining room.
On the hearth was a long iron poker. "That may prove useful," hethought; and leaping lightly down he seized it. A large chopper hung toa nail at the side of the chimney. This also he secured. Then creepingto the door, he peeped round from the level of the floor. Three menwere seated at a table enjoying their supper. This was apparently thecook's room. The men were very much at their ease. A large fire oflogs threw a glow upon their faces; a bottle of wine had been emptied;the smell of fried onions teased Jack's appetite. He listened to themen's conversation.
"_Monsieur le capitaine_ will bring two guests to supper," said one.
"_Peste!_" growled a second, the fattest of all, by whom, as Jack nowsaw, a cook's white cap lay, "he will keep us up late. _Monsieur lecapitaine_ is so particular. A supper fit for Bonaparte is not goodenough for him. The kitchen fire will have to be made up. Go and seeto it, Jules."
The man addressed scraped his plate and drank his wine before lazilyrising to do the cook's bidding. Jack flew back with the speed of ahare, and before the man had pushed back his chair the adventurer wasseveral feet up the chimney, grasping his precious spoil, the poker andthe chopper.