A NEW PRISON
There were few incidents of special interest during the first day of the
march of these 250 prisoners toward the German border. Of course to
persons unaccustomed to the sights and scenes in the blasted war zone,
everything along the route must have been interesting. But to these men
of several months’ experience, a landscape of unmarred beauty and order
must have been a novelty worthy of observation.
Every town, village or hamlet that they passed through was partly or
completely wrecked by shell explosions or fire. Most of the French
inhabitants had fled, although here and there were a few who had been
caught in the advancing wave of the invading army. Much of the open
country was disfigured with shell holes and trenches, and many of the
farm houses had been converted, wantonly it appeared, into heaps of
charred woodwork, black masonry and ashes.
An hour before the dusk of evening they arrived at a small town that was
in better condition of physical preservation than any of the others they
had passed through. Apparently it was used as a sort of way-station in
the line of communications between the fighting front and the Rhine
frontier.
There was no barbed wire inclosure for keeping the prisoners over night
in this place, and so they were housed in buildings that showed no
serious effects of recent bombardment. Phil and his two friends managed
to keep close together during the march and were much gratified with the
result of their efforts when they found themselves lodged in the same
building for the night. They were given their unvarying
breakfast-dinner-supper stew and stale bread shortly before dusk and
then, together with a dozen others, were locked in a small house that
undoubtedly, before the last big drive of the enemy, had been occupied
by a French family of not more than three or four.
The house was bare. Every article of furniture had been removed. Not
even a lamp with which to dispel the gloom of the place was to be found.
“There isn’t a bit of ventilation in this house,” declared one of the
prisoners, whose name, it soon developed, was Arthur Evans.
“And we don’t dare try to open a window for fear one of the guards may
try his marksmanship at us,” said another who had been addressed in
Phil’s hearing as Jerry Carey.
“It’s almost as big a menace as being gassed,” muttered another Marine,
who answered to the name of Burns.
“I don’t suppose we fifteen men would exactly die in these tightly
closed rooms in one night,” said Phil meditatively; “but I’m afraid we’d
almost have to be carried out by morning. We’d better get our wits
together and contrive some kind of vent that will make possible a
current of air up through the chimney.”
“I’m in favor of smashing one of the windows with a shoe,” Burns
announced. “We can all drop down flat on the floor and escape a volley
from the guards if they fire in here.”
“Let’s try something else,” Phil proposed. “Here’s a trapdoor. Maybe it
opens into a basement or cellar. Let’s see if we can’t get some air
through that.”
There was no ring or handle of any kind with which to lift the door. So
Phil hunted around until he found a small stick with which he was able
to get a slight purchase and lifted the door until he was able to get
hold of it with his fingers. A moment later the entire group of
prisoners were gazing down into a dark hole in which the only visible
object was the upper part of a rude flight of steps.
“There’s no air in that place,” declared one of the Marines, sniffing in
disgust at the scent of mold and must of the atmosphere in the cellar.
“I wish I had a light and I’d go down and explore it,” said Phil. “Who
knows what we might find in it?”
“Some rotten apples and potatoes and a lot of mice and vermin, more’n
likely,” prophesied Dan Fentress pessimistically.
“Oh, I agree with you there, and I agree also that it is hardly probable
that I’d find anything worth while,” Phil replied. “Still, just to be
doing something, I’d like to explore that hole in the ground. Remember,
fellows, this is pretty nearly on the other side of the world from where
we live. Consequently, everything we see and hear around, about, within
and among these our approximate antipodes ought to interest us.”
“Nobody could say you nay after such poetic persuasion as that,” avowed
one of the imprisoned Marines who thus far had been conspicuous
principally because of his silence.
“I left a hard-headed friend unconscious back in Belleau Woods yesterday
who had no use for poets in war,” Phil returned quickly. “He regarded
them as worse than enemy spies, and I don’t know but that I agree with
him. So, you see, you haven’t complimented me very much.”
“There seems to be a little light down there,” said Evans, who had been
peering into the cellarway while the others were engaged in what he
regarded as profitless palaver. “There must be a window in the cellar
wall, and as it isn’t dark yet, probably a wee bit of daylight is
filtering through.”
“I’m going down and feel about with my hands,” Phil announced, placing
one foot on the top step. “If there’s any light at all down there, I’ll
get the benefit of it after my eyes have got accustomed to conditions.
So here’s hoping that I’ll find something of more value than rotten
apples.”
“I hope you’ll find a keg o’ cider,” said Evans, smacking his lips.
Phil had descended no more than half a dozen steps when he stopped with
a low exclamation of interest.
“What’s up?” asked Emmet Harding.
“There’s a shelf here right beside the stairway and several things on
it. I’ll hand them up to you, and you see what they are.”
The first article that Phil laid, his hands on was a short housewife’s
paring knife. As he had been deprived of his own jackknife when searched
behind the boche lines, he decided to appropriate this valuable kitchen
tool to his own use and put it into a pocket of his coat. The next was a
small wooden box, which the finder passed up to one of the fellows who
reached down to receive it.
“Candles!” announced the latter eagerly, for there was no lid on it and
the contents were plainly visible in the twilight.
“You don’t say!” exclaimed Phil, returning to the top of the stairway
eagerly.
“You bet I do,” answered the other, holding up one of the sticks of
molded wax. “There must be a dozen here.”
“What good will they do unless somebody has a match?” inquired Evans
skeptically. “I bet there isn’t a match in this crowd.”
A hurried search by everybody present confirmed this bit of pessimism.
“Never mind,” said Phil quietly; “I’m going to light one of those
candles without a match.”