Henri and Jules and Stuart
There was a hue and cry in the camp of Ruhleben which caused heads to
be thrust out of doors and out of windows, made prisoners who had been
languishing in the place for months start to their feet and look
enquiringly about them, and set a German official turning round and
round like a teetotum--his moustaches bristling, his hair on end,
amazed at the din and fearful for the cause of it. It all commenced
with a sudden shout, and then was emphasized by the explosion of a
rifle. A dull thud followed as a bullet struck one of the huts and
perforated it, and then a dozen weapons went off, the somewhat aged
guardians of the camp losing their heads and blazing away without aim
and without authority.
"What's up? What's happened? Why is there firing?"
"Shooting a prisoner, eh? Brutes--they'd do anything! Mon Dieu! What
will happen next?"
The first speaker was a delicate, pale-faced, spectacled Breton; the
second, a vivacious individual from Paris, who, like Henri and Jules,
had had the misfortune to be in Germany when the war broke out. Their
eager questions were followed by the somewhat phlegmatic and casual
words of an Englishman--a red-headed, red-cheeked, healthy-looking
individual, who, in spite of short commons, still looked bulky.
"Someone's lost his head," he said caustically, with a growl, sitting
up and looking about him. "I'll get the reason in two guesses:
someone's trying to escape, or someone has escaped."
Something very dreadful might really have happened, judging by the
commotion in the camp, by the shouts of the sentries, and by the
firing. The Governor himself--living aloof from the individuals
interned in the place and under his administration--heard the racket
and came out, buttoning up his tunic, alarmed, his thoughts in a whirl,
eager to discover what had given rise to the commotion; and Henri and
Jules, like the rest of their companions, were, as one may imagine,
just as curious and just as eager.
"Whatever the ruction is, whatever the cause, the point where it
commenced is over there, behind those huts in the far corner," said the
former, watching the German guards race across the place and listening
to their shouts and to the loud commands of the non-commissioned
officers amongst them. "Let's saunter in that direction. Come along."
And saunter they did, being joined in a little while by a number of
people interned in the camp; and amongst them by the red-headed,
red-cheeked, and healthy-looking individual who boasted, somewhat
loudly it is to be feared at times, of his English nationality. Not
that such boastings disgusted the unhappy people interned at Ruhleben,
for it did them good in those days of depression to hear a man--a
robust man such as this individual--proud of his birth, and still
possessed of sufficient spirit to glory in it, to draw comparisons
between himself, his French, his Belgian, and his Japanese
fellow-prisoners, and Germans in general, The man's swagger, in fact,
delighted them, and helped to bolster up the fading spirits of many an
unfortunate captive in the camp--of many a man, who, but for the jibes
and uncomplimentary remarks of this robust prisoner, would long since
have given up hope and have subsided into melancholy.
"What a row!" he scoffed, as side by side with Jules and Henri he
sauntered across the compound. "No, don't you hurry, you fellows, for
there's never any knowing what will happen in these days. Those German
guards have lost their heads, and the chances are that, if in your
curiosity you happen to step along too quickly or to run, they'd
imagine that a mutiny had broken out, and would blaze away at you.
Lor' what a commotion!"
By now some twenty of the German guards--those Landsturm men of perhaps
fifty years of age--had collected in the opposite corner, at the point
where the alarm had first been given, and could be seen, grouped
together, gesticulating, shouting at one another, peering into the
corner of the compound, and carrying on in a manner which accentuated,
if anything, the curiosity of the prisoners.
"One could imagine anything," laughed Henri as they got nearer. "For
instance, you could imagine that one of the fellows interned here,
goaded to rashness by these bullies who look after us, had struck one
of them."
"Yes, that's not at all unlikely. Goaded to madness, one of the poor
chaps may have put his fist into the face of a German guard, and that
shot would have been the result; of course, the poor beggar would be
killed instantly, for your German is nothing if not ruthless. He's
armed, you see, and is the stronger party, and knows that the
authorities won't look too harshly on any drastic action."
"Hold on! Perhaps it's not a case of an assault on one of the guards,"
chimed in the healthy Englishman, Stuart by name. "I've said already
that I'd guess the reason in two guesses--someone trying to escape, or
someone already escaped--and I stick to that opinion. Let's hope it's
someone escaped--lucky beggar! Here have I been kicking my heels about
this infernal camp for months past, looking round for a chance to get
out, ready to 'do in' a German guard if the opportunity came. But,
bless you, there's never been the remotest chance, for these Germans
keep their eyes so precious wide open. As for 'doing in' a guard, why,
I'd do in half a dozen; for, believe me, it'd want a good half-dozen
Germans to stop me, once I saw the hole open through which I could get
out."
It wasn't altogether undiluted brag on the part of this sturdy
fellow--mere boasting of what he would do under particular conditions
which were never likely to arise. A glance at him, indeed, rather
helped to support his statements, for Stuart, though somewhat
attenuated after those months of internment at Ruhleben, after months
of short commons and indifferent accommodation, was still a big bony
fellow of some twenty-five years of age, with broad shoulders, long
arms and legs, and a chest which would have fitted a Hercules. True,
there were hollows in his cheeks, and his eyes were gaunt and sunken,
yet what man in that camp of suffering, what man amongst all the
unfortunate fellows caught in Germany at the outbreak of war and
hustled to Ruhleben, did not, long since, show signs of suffering and
anxiety and of want, often of destitution. As a matter of fact, the
robust Stuart had stood the privations of the place better than the
majority of his fellows; and perhaps his very jauntiness of spirit, the
courage which sustained him and helped also to sustain his comrades,
kept him from feeling his position so acutely, and helped also to
assist him in surviving a state of affairs which to some had long since
become intolerable, which indeed was killing not a few by inches.
By now the trio had crossed the compound, and were within a few feet of
their guards, who, absorbed in whatever had caused the alarm and had
sent them rushing to that corner, seemed to overlook the prisoners--all
the men about them--seemed to be unaware of the crowd collecting in
that quarter. They were gathered in the far corner, just outside one
of the many huts erected there--a sorry affair, which at one time had
done duty on the race-course as a tool-shed. In those days it would
not have been considered good enough even for the dogs of the owners of
German race-horses; but now, yes, it was good enough--too good--for
these enemy prisoners, for these individuals snatched from amongst the
civil population of Germany. Young men, some of them, hale men in
those days before the war; elderly men, invalids from some of Germany's
health resorts--harmless individuals in numerous cases, who, had they
been Germans and in England, would have been left alone, able to live
their lives in peace and security, provided they obeyed certain rules
and regulations of a not too drastic nature; but in Germany German
"frightfulness" allowed of no leniency even to sick men. And here they
were, the hale, the young, the sick, and the old, hustled to Ruhleben,
and herded there together in such an old shed as the one in this far
corner. Many men brought up in luxury in France or in England, needing
care and comfort because of the state of their health, and undoubtedly
quite harmless individuals, were forced to find such accommodation
during those dreary months of later 1914 and the months which followed
as this World War went on.
It happened, too, that amongst the people interned at this place were a
number of jockeys and racing people, employed up to the date of the war
by German masters, and detained in the country. These--perhaps a dozen
of them--had been posted to the very hut round which the German guards
were then standing, and, as Henri and Jules came upon the scene, could
be observed within the ring of guards, cowering, looking askance at the
Germans, and evidently in sore trouble.
"One of our jockey friends then is the culprit," said Jules; "it's one
of the racing-men who has been goaded to madness."
"And has been shot by a German guard?" asked Henri.
"Not a bit of it, not a bit of it!" exclaimed Stuart; "there has been
no shooting here. Just listen to the questions being asked. I know
German sufficiently to be able to tell what's passing, and those German
guards are asking how the work commenced, who thought of the idea, and
who was the ring-leader? If that isn't connected with an attempt at
escape, call me a Dutchman. No, no; don't call me a German," he said
_sotto voce_ in Henri's ear, grimacing as he did so; "don't call me
that, my boy, or you will be in trouble."
Certainly the German guards were asking many questions; they were
firing them off by the hundred almost, they were shouting them at their
prisoners and at one another, till there was such a babel that no one
could answer and few could understand. It was not, indeed, until a
non-commissioned officer of burly form and bullying appearance came
upon the scene that the commotion ended, and some sort of order was
introduced.
"Stop this brawling," he bellowed, thrusting his way in amongst the
guards and pushing them unceremoniously to either side. "What's this
racket? Who fired the shot? Quick, answer!"
A somewhat startled-looking individual, a man with grey beard and
rotund body, who before the onset of the war may have anticipated well
enough that he would never again be called to the colours, advanced
somewhat timidly from behind his comrades and drew himself up stiffly
at attention. Yet not stiffly enough, not with that snap which is
characteristic of the younger German. The non-commissioned officer
coughed and snorted, and looked the man over with a threatening eye
which set the fellow trembling.
"Ha! Ho! It is you, eh? You fired the shot--you?" and there was a
note of contempt in his voice. "Then why? On whose orders? Here are
the orders of the day as to the duties of a sentry, and as to the
occasions on which he shall use a rifle. Listen, I will read them."
It was a sample of German militarism which the Sergeant was reproducing
to the full, a sample of the preciseness of the Teuton. Keeping this
elderly guard at attention till the poor fellow looked as though he
would explode, he groped in the pocket in the tail of his tunic, and,
producing a notebook, proceeded to extricate from it a sheet of paper
on which were some typewritten lines; and then in a ponderous and
somewhat menacing voice he read the orders--orders which set forth
exactly and minutely when a guard should come on duty and when he
should be relieved, what reports he should prepare, and what he was to
observe amongst the prisoners. Finally, having elaborated a number of
minor points, it set forth the orders as to using firearms.
"And shall not fire upon the prisoners unless there be occasion,"
coughed the Sergeant; "that is to say, unless there is insubordination
amongst them, mutiny, a threat to strike, or an endeavour to escape.
That is the gist of the orders. Now, my friend, you have either obeyed
or you have disobeyed your orders. Your report! You fired a shot.
Why? Under what heading?"
No wonder the unfortunate and rotund guard who had set the camp in an
uproar flushed till he became quite scarlet, till his face swelled to
the point of bursting, and until his eyes looked as though they would
fall out of his astonished head. He stuttered and coughed, and stood
at ease, for the effort to remain at attention was beyond him.
"Halt! Stand to attention!" thundered the non-commissioned officer.
"Now, your report. There was incipient mutiny amongst the prisoners,
eh?"
The guard shook his head and spluttered; even now he was unable to
command so much as a single word.
"No! Then there was insubordination amongst a number, or in the case
of a single individual, eh?"
"Not so," the guard managed to stutter; "not so, Sergeant."
"Ah! Then we get nearer to it. A man struck you, or threatened to do
so?"
"No, it was not that," the German standing to attention managed to
answer; "not that, Sergeant."
"What, then? Then it was someone attempting an escape? Someone trying
to break out of Ruhleben!" shouted the Sergeant--bellowed it, in
fact--when he saw that the guard was nodding his head emphatically.
"You mean to tell me that you have stood there all these minutes, and
allowed me to read the orders of the day, and to cross-examine you,
without giving so much as a hint as to the real cause of the firing of
your rifle? You mean to say that you have allowed all this delay, well
knowing that a prisoner is attempting or had made an escape, and
thereby have assisted him to make clean away from this prison?"
It was the non-commissioned officer's turn almost to explode with
indignation and anger; he towered above the trembling guard as he
thundered at him, and might still have been abusing him and threatening
him had it not been that at that moment another individual came upon
the scene--a short, spare, dried-up fellow, a lieutenant, one risen
from the ranks not long ago, and still retaining all the bullying ways
of a non-commissioned officer. If the burly sergeant had jostled the
guards unceremoniously to either side, had stamped on their feet, had
threatened and browbeaten them, the new-comer was tenfold more violent
and domineering. If looks could have slaughtered individuals, the
glance he cast at the sergeant would have slain that perspiring and
angry person in an instant, while the scathing glances cast at the
group of guards would have decimated the whole party. Yet, if this
under-officer's looks were terrible, if he were still more threatening
than the non-commissioned officer, he was at least practical, and quick
to get to the bottom of matters.
"Stop this racket!" he commanded abruptly, snapping the words like
pistol-shots at those round him. "There was an alarm; it started with
a rifle-shot--I know all that, so you needn't report it. Stop!" he
commanded, seeing the non-commissioned officer open his mouth as if to
describe what had happened. "A rifle-shot gave the alarm--something
caused one of the guards to fire. This man here undoubtedly is the man
who did so. Sergeant, you have called for his report? You have been
here a good five minutes--what's the report?"
"A prisoner escaping. This fool here has kept the knowledge from me
until this very moment, and I have only just managed to drag the
information from him. I have----"
"Hold!" snapped the officer. "I am not asking what you did; I am
asking what caused the sentry to fire. A prisoner escaping, you tell
me--he's gone then; you've ascertained that fact?"
"I--I--he--you----"
The non-commissioned officer was utterly taken aback, and it was his
turn now to look askance at this dried-up, sinister-looking
under-officer. If the unfortunate and aged guard who had fired that
shot had been remiss in making a rapid report--remissness excusable
enough considering the violence of the Sergeant--the latter had been
more remiss in not pursuing the matter more rapidly. He knew it, and
knew that the under-officer already condemned him. Moreover, with that
under-officer, he was well aware, excuses would not avail him.
"I was going to----"
"That will do," the officer told him. "Whatever you were going to do
was not your duty. You have been delaying a report; I will deal with
you later in the Commandant's office. Now, my friend," he began,
turning upon the trembling guard, "a prisoner was escaping; I will ask
the question that should have been asked at the very commencement: you
fired a shot--you killed the man, eh?--so that he did not escape, or
you stopped him?"
There was the dawn of a smile actually on the face of the rotund guard
who had been so odiously browbeaten by the Sergeant. It was his turn,
he felt, his turn to be jubilant, and at the expense of the man who had
bullied him so abominably. He was, in fact, helping to turn the tables
on the Sergeant, and hastened to assist the officer.
"I was about to report the matter, sir," he said. "A prisoner was
escaping, but failed. I did not shoot him, because it was not
possible, seeing that he was out of sight and underground. I therefore
fired my rifle to give an alarm and to call assistance. Meanwhile I
stood guard over the opening, which I discovered by mere accident. In
the hut, there, sir, there is a hole beneath the boards laid on the
floor, and a tunnel leading from it. It is not my duty to enter the
huts, and, in fact, the orders of sentries are emphatic on that point;
we are to patrol outside though, and not to venture farther unless
there is a commotion. But it is the duty of the non-commissioned
officer in whose charge a hut may be to see that the prisoners keep the
place tidy, to watch them carefully, and to observe if they show signs
of an attempted escape."
"Hah!" The fierce little dried-up under-officer actually
smiled--smiled at this stout sentry, smiled at him, and, indeed, almost
winked. For, in an instant, he had realized what was happening, how by
this last statement the guard was implicating the Sergeant, who had
been so recently upbraiding him. To speak the truth, he was no lover
of the non-commissioned officer either; and in days gone by--not so
very long ago either--when he, too, had been of the non-commissioned
officers' ranks, and had enjoyed but little seniority over the
Sergeant, he had had occasion to complain of his bullying, of his
arrogance, and of his unpleasant gibes and innuendoes. It was an
opportunity then to be snatched at, both for the sake of himself and of
this somewhat ancient sentry, who, whatever he might be, however
stupid, was essentially harmless.
"So," he began, "that is as you say, my friend; it is not your duty to
enter any of the enclosures, but to march to and fro and to keep an eye
on the prisoners. It is for the sergeant in charge of each of the huts
to carry out his duties, and to detect any and every effort to escape.
Then who is the sergeant in charge of this place outside which we are
standing?"
There was silence amongst the group, a deathly silence, during which
the aged Landsturm sentry pulled himself up stiffly at attention, or
into the nearest approach to that position to which he could attain,
and smiled covertly in the direction of the sergeant who had browbeaten
him. Others of those somewhat senile guards, who at the sound of their
officer's voice had assumed that position of respect demanded of all
German soldiers, also cast swift glances in the same direction, and
even went so far--seeing that the snappy little officer's back was
turned and his attention otherwise engaged--as to grin quite openly,
and smirk, as they watched the flaming face of the Sergeant. As for
the latter, perspiration was pouring from beneath his helmet, the man's
hands were twitching, while his eyes were rolling in the most horrible
manner. He was cornered, he knew, and guessed thoroughly that the
opportunity thus discovered, thanks to the sentry and to his own
bullying manner, would be taken advantage of.
"Who, then, is the sergeant responsible?" asked the officer in cold,
unsympathetic tones, looking the unfortunate sergeant over from the
spike of his _Pickelhaube_ to the thick soles of his regulation boots.
"Surely not this sergeant? Surely not the non-commissioned officer
before me--the one so quick to find fault with a sentry who seems to
have been doing only his duty? Surely not!"
And yet a glance at his face showed well enough that he knew that the
culprit stood before him; moreover, that he was determined to make the
most of the opportunity.
"I--we--this fool here----" began the Sergeant, spluttering, confused,
and now just as thoroughly frightened as had been the victim he had
pounced upon such a little time before.
"Stop!" snapped the officer; "you are under arrest; go back to your
quarters. Now, my man, you fired your rifle to stop a man from
escaping. Narrate the circumstances, and quickly, for, for all I know,
the rascal may be even now continuing the attempt."
At that the sentry smiled--smiled boldly too, when he saw the
discomfiture of the Sergeant. Turning half-right abruptly, till he
faced the entrance of the hut, he pointed towards it, and shook his
grizzly head knowingly.
"It was like this, sir," he said, with an air of triumph, "I was
passing to and fro on my beat, noting nothing out of the ordinary,
until there came a moment when I was opposite this hut, almost on the
precise spot on which I am now standing, when I heard sounds which
attracted my notice--heavy sounds, the noise of men digging. There was
no sergeant in sight, no one responsible for the hut to whom I could
appeal, yet a glance within showed me an opening in the floor, covered
as a rule by boards, which were now removed. There was a man in the
hole, deep down and beyond it, in a tunnel, a man whose figure I could
only just discern--a ruffian who was attempting to dig his way from the
hut out beyond the wire entanglements. It was then, seeing there was
no one here to support me, that I fired my rifle."
"Ha! And the fellow is there still?" demanded the officer quickly.
"Still, your honour, unless he has escaped during the time the Sergeant
cross-questioned me; of a truth, he is still there, unless, perhaps, he
should have in the meantime, while I was delayed in executing my duty,
contrived to clamber out of the opening."
"Close in, you men," bellowed the officer; "half a dozen of you come
along with me, and hold your rifles ready. Now, into the hut and let
us capture these fellows."
Closing round the entrance to the hovel--termed a hut--in which the
unfortunate interned aliens had been forced to live for months, the
sentries watched the officer and a few of their comrades push their way
into the interior, heard them stamping on the boards, and listened to
the peremptory orders of the former.
"Come out, you ruffian, or ruffians," he bellowed. "We have you
securely, and any further attempt at escape will be met with instant
execution. Ah! I can see a man down below. Go in, two of you men,
and haul him up to the surface."
With no great show of enthusiasm, stiffly, and with a lack of energy
and that activity to be expected of younger men, two of the guards at
once lowered themselves into the pit dug beneath the boards which did
duty as a flooring to this hovel, and, disappearing from sight in the
tunnel excavated from the bottom of it, were presently heard giving
expression to gruff commands, while the sound of scuffling followed.
Then they reappeared, dragging a couple of dishevelled and exceedingly
dirty prisoners with them. Others of the guards then stepped forward,
and in a trice the wretched men who had been detected in the act of
escaping were dragged from the hole, were placed between sentries, and
were marched out of the hut.
Meanwhile, as may be imagined, the excitement in the camp had not
tended to decrease, for curiosity had been added to it. There was a
throng of prisoners round the hut long since, watching at first the
altercation between the Sergeant and the sentry, and then observing and
listening to all that followed.
"A pretty kettle of fish--eh?" sneered Stuart, the healthy Britisher.
"Sorry for those poor beggars; for their rations have been short enough
already, and now, if they are not shot, they will get close confinement
and bread and water only for a couple of weeks or more. Bad luck!
Horribly bad luck! Just at the last, too, for it looks as though they
were well on the way to safety."
"Now, report," suddenly came the voice of the little officer, as he
glowered upon the prisoners. "You two who went into the tunnel report
on its length, its depth. Bah! You didn't look! You didn't ascertain
that! Wait while I investigate the matter."
Seizing an electric torch from one of the hapless prisoners, the
officer dropped into the pit immediately and was gone for some few
minutes, only to emerge again, dirty like the prisoners, but triumphant
instead of crestfallen, his face beaming, his eyes sparkling with
happiness. So pleased was he that he even went to the length of
patting that stout, rotund sentry on the shoulder as soon as he had
emerged into the open.
"A fine catch," he told him, "bravely done, my friend! See, you
detected them just at the very right moment, for the dusk is already
growing, and in five minutes or less they would have been in the open.
Let me tell you, that tunnel was not prepared in a day or two, or even
in a week, I am certain. It is the work of days and days, grim, hard
work, and has been carried right up beyond the hut and under the wire
entanglements. There it stops, though already it was rising to the
surface, and to-morrow morning, when we investigate the place, I feel
sure that a thrust with a bar will break a way into the open. March
the prisoners across to the guard-room; and you, my friend, come along
and make your report to the Commandant. Ha! What are all these
rascals doing here? Curious, eh? Get back to your stables!"
There was an instant move on the part of the prisoners interned in the
camp, who had collected in this corner to see what was passing.
Turning about promptly--for to disobey an order when under the thumb of
Germans was to court a shot from a rifle--they went off briskly in the
dusk to their own particular huts, while behind them was heard the
sharp command of the sergeant in charge of the sentries, the tramp of
heavy feet, and the passage of the sentries and prisoners in the
direction of the guard-room.
"Come along," said Stuart, his hands deep in his pockets, his head held
forward, his chin on his breast. "I'm frightfully sorry for those poor
fellows. Just fancy! To be within, say, a foot of freedom and then to
fall, and then to be detected by the merest mischance."
"Within a foot of freedom! That's what that officer said," Henri was
muttering to himself. "Just a foot, just a thrust of an iron bar, and
then to safety, freedom--freedom from this prison. Why not!"
"Why not?" he asked suddenly, clutching Jules's coat.
"What? Why not?" the latter asked. "Don't understand."
"Why not complete the work? Those fellows have done precisely what we
should have done--they've dug a hole and have run a tunnel from the
bottom of it out below the open and below the entanglements. It's
there--ready for anyone who wants to get out of this place. Anyone,
Jules! Don't you understand?"
Stuart grabbed at Henri, and thrust his big, healthy face close up to
his. He was breathing deeply, in heavy gusts, and, but for the
gathering darkness, it would have been seen that his eyes were shining,
while he showed every sign of excitement.
"Why not? You fellows were thinking of making an escape?" he asked.
"Certainly," Henri told him; "we've been saving our grub, and what
money we could get. We were ready but for the method, and now it's
there--there in that hut--quite close to us, and it's dark enough,
and--and--and there's no one about--why not?"
"Come on," said Stuart abruptly, in that resolute way he had. "I'm
with you fellows, if you'll have me."
Without another word the trio turned promptly, and, looking round to
make sure that no one had observed them, they bolted back to the hut
from which those unfortunate prisoners had been dragged, and, closing
the door behind them, leapt into the pit and made their way into the
tunnel. Freedom lay before them--freedom for which they pined--freedom
to be had if only they could break their way into the open.