MY ESCAPE
In the Arab prison : The letter : Days of suffering : Flight! : The
greedy "Crédit Lyonnais" : Haggling in the Ghetto : The palm grove as a
dressing-room : On the railway track : Arab policemen : Horrible
minutes : Travelling to Oran : Small preparations : On the steamer
_St. Augustine_ : Marseilles-Ventimiglia : Free
The days came and the days went, and with every day I understood more
what it meant to be a légionnaire in Africa.
The knowledge so gained was not pleasant.
One day I was on guard in the Arab prison of Sidi-bel-Abbès, an ugly,
gloomy building in the middle of the town. An old retired sergeant of
the Legion was overseer of the Arab prison, and with the help of two
gendarmes kept the Arab prisoners in strictest order. The prison was
always crowded with native sinners, for the petty thefts in the
market-place and the constant fights in the negro quarter kept the
cells of that grey building near the Place Sadi Carnot always full. The
native prisoners had often made trouble, and mutinies had been quite
frequent. The last outbreak had been very serious, so since that time
the Legion had sent a guard every day to the Arab prison consisting of
a corporal and six men.
My rifle with fixed bayonet over my shoulder, I kept pacing slowly on
the top of the broad wall surrounding the prison in an enormous square.
The sun burned down pitilessly. In the tiny courtyard small groups of
Arab prisoners cowered in the sulky silence of inactivity. All talking
was forbidden in the prison. The overseer's sharp words of command now
and then, and the ring of my steps on the stones of the wall, sounded
into the silence. Mechanically I followed the path prescribed for
"sentry-go," marching round and round the prison square.
From the high wall I had a view of all Sidi-bel-Abbès. The town was
like a city of the dead in this frightful heat. The blinds in all the
houses were pulled down and there was not a soul to be seen in the
streets. In the hot, trembling air the faint outlines of the mountains
of Thessala glittered in the far distance. There was not a breath of
wind.
Two légionnaires in white fatigue uniforms turned into the street
leading to the prison. They were men from our company, bringing us our
evening soup. They called out something to me that I could not
understand and I acknowledged it with an indifferent nod. Then they
knocked at the gate of the prison and had to wait an age till the
overseer opened it with his jingling bunch of keys and they could carry
their soup-pail into the guard-room. Some minutes later one of them
came into the yard by the guard-room and beckoned to me to come nearer
to him. As I approached, I saw that he held a white something in his
hand.
"Eh, une lettre pour toi!" he cried. "Here's a letter for you."
Very much annoyed I called down to him to hurry up and get out of this.
It was too hot for practical jokes. I never got letters....
"But here is one," said the man. "Your name, your company, your
number--everything all right! La la--I'm off--I'll give your letter to
the corporal. May Allah better your bad temper! Sapristi, how hot it
is!"
I had to wait half an hour until I was relieved. Those were terrible
minutes. A letter--a letter for me? It seemed almost impossible. There
was nobody in the world who could or should know where I was or what I
was doing. The blood rose in hot waves to my head--and all at once I
recognised that there was only one human being who could have written
to me--that her love was not dead.
Slowly the seconds, the minutes went by. I waited in indescribable
suspense. The sun was sinking. The houses of Sidi-bel-Abbès were bathed
in its ruddy glow. Below me in the prison yard I heard a noisy
chattering in guttural Arabic. The prisoners were being given their
food and were then allowed to speak. The poor devils' chatter seemed to
pierce my brain; that buzzing noise down below hurt me, until I could
not stand it any longer.
"Be quiet there!" I cried.
There was immediate silence. A gendarme called out to me that I had
made a mistake and that talking was allowed. "Pas defendu de parler,"
he said to the prisoners, and the Arabs looked up at me with angry
eyes.
And I had to go on waiting, waiting....
This awful suspense seemed to have lasted for hours when the corporal
at last came to relieve me. The conventionality of passing orders and
sentry instructions was being gone through; we were on service and it
was contrary to all discipline--but I could not wait any longer.
"You've a letter for me, corporal?" I asked.
"Yes, there is a letter for you," he answered. "You can have it as soon
as I have done relieving the sentries. En avant--marche!"
A new period of anxious waiting and torturing expectation.... At last
the corporal of the guard came back and put his hand in his pocket:
"Voilà!"
On the white envelope I saw the characters of the handwriting I knew so
well. I went out into the square which was now empty, as the prisoners
had been locked up in their cells again. I read and read--again and
again....
Love stretched out its hand to the lost soldier of the Legion and spoke
to him of happiness to come. Long years hence when the légionnaire
would be no longer a légionnaire. The letter's many pages bore traces
of tears. I wanted to tear off my uniform, that brand of slavery
condemning me to inactivity. Within me all was in a whirl. In the
darkness of the ugly court I dreamed dreams of the past and hopes of
the future so hopelessly far off. During the four hours from watch to
watch I sat motionless in the prison-yard.
In these few hours there came to me that energy which meant the
beginning of a new life. Then it was my turn for sentry duty again. And
then I sat down at the small table in the guard-room while the corporal
and the other men slept, and wrote an endless letter with the
corporal's pencil on the back of report forms. Page upon page....
The next day a letter from my mother came; a letter that neither asked
questions nor held reproaches. It only spoke of love and anxiety for
me. This letter solved the riddle of how my whereabouts had been
discovered. After long months of waiting and wondering the people who
loved me got the idea that I might be in the Foreign Legion, since the
last letter they received from me had been dated from the French
fortress, Belfort. My mother wrote to the general in command of the
fortress and to the French Secretary of War. The answer was long
delayed, but at last the news came that I had joined the Foreign Legion
at Sidi-bel-Abbès--that I was the légionnaire number 17889!
With that hour in the Arab prison which brought me the first letter,
the days of suffering began. I performed my duty and did my work like a
machine, thinking of nothing but the letters which the next post would
bring me. I hardly spoke a word to anybody in those times. When I was
off duty I went for long walks in the still paths by the fortifications
in order to be alone. Finally only one idea governed my thoughts:
Flight!
Week after week I received letters every day, begging and beseeching me
to have patience. I was to remember that all hopes for the future would
be shattered if I was caught deserting. Better to wait for years than
to risk everything. But I could not wait. And one day there came a
registered letter from my mother. When I opened it, I held banknotes
for a large sum of money in my hand....
This meant freedom! I crossed the court of the barracks as one in a
dream. This money in my pocket meant new life for me--my mother had for
the second time given me life. I knew what a sacrifice this money
meant; how hard it must have been for my mother with her tiny widow's
pension to scrape together such a sum of money for me. And all at once
a wave of happiness overcame me--I should be free! I should be able to
thank those loving ones who were helping me....
* * * * *
I got that letter at five o'clock in the afternoon. I was just off duty
and had come back to the barracks, having been pulling out weeds in the
Legion's cemetery. That should be my last bit of work as légionnaire.
Not a single hour I intended to wait. There was no more rest for me in
the land of Sidi-bel-Abbès. In our quarters my comrades were sitting at
supper as I came back from the regimental post-bureau, and Smith was
much surprised at my eating nothing, and at my putting on at once my
extra uniform. He looked suspiciously at me, as if he had an idea that
I had something out of the way on my mind. I would have been only too
glad to say a last good-bye to the old bugler who had been a true
friend to me in his rough way, but he was sitting at table with the
rest of the men. When I had finished dressing and had quietly taken my
letters and the few trifles I wanted to take with me out of my
knapsack, Smith came up and lay down on his bed as usual after supper.
"Good-bye, old man," I whispered. "You've been a good fellow."
Smith did not move. Only his eyes lighted up....
"Got money?" he asked gently.
"Yes."
"Then it's all right. Good-bye, sonny--good-bye!"
As I went out the other men were sitting on the benches doing the
various odd jobs which were part of life in the Legion. They rubbed and
polished--polished and rubbed. At that time they were hardly more to me
than a passer-by in the street. Now, I confess, the face of every one
of them is indelibly burnt into my brain.
I was to be subjected to a final annoyance.
The sergeant of the guard stopped me at the gate of the barracks,
because in my excitement I had buttoned up my overcoat on the wrong
side. He said he had a good mind to turn me back for my carelessness.
"Nom de Dieu! you pig, don't you know that this month the overcoats are
buttoned on the right side?"
But he let me go. Through the crowd of légionnaires I hurried down the
promenade. The first place I had to go to was the "Crédit Lyonnais,"
the famous French bank which had a branch in Sidi-bel-Abbès near the
Place Sadi Carnot. The greater part of my money consisted of Belgian
banknotes, which naturally were not in circulation in Algeria, and I
thought I should be able to have them changed at the bank more quickly
and cheaply than anywhere else. There I made a mistake. The clerk at
the counter explained in a roundabout way that Belgian banknotes were
of no use to them, and that it would cost a lot of money to send them
to Paris. He was only greedy, of course (everybody in Sidi-bel-Abbès
is), and trying to get an especially high commission out of me. Perhaps
he thought that a légionnaire should be too pleased at having so much
money to bother about a few francs more or less. There he was in error.
I replied I should complain to the colonel of my regiment that the only
bank in Sidi-bel-Abbès tried to overcharge a simple soldier. Whereupon
this greedy clerk of a world-famous bank grumblingly took my notes and
gave me French money for them.
Through the brightly illuminated main streets, saluting officers right
and left, I hurried to the Ghetto. In the very first alley of the
Ghetto I met an old fellow who looked promising. I tapped him on the
shoulder.
"Eh! Civilian clothes?"
The Jew raised his forefinger warningly.
"Can't sell to légionnaires."
I turned on my heels and went slowly on. But he was after me already.
"How much?"
"Twenty francs."
"Fifty!"
"Thirty."
"Forty-five!"
"Look here," I said. (The conversation was held in bad Algerian French,
of course.) "I'll give you forty francs, and that settles it. But I've
got to have those clothes quick."
The Jew looked at me dubiously, and held out the palms of his hands.
One could not be mistaken about the gesture: he had his doubts about my
solvency. So I reassured the old man by showing him a few gold pieces.
Now the son of Israel was quite satisfied, and led me a few steps
farther on into a house. A tiny little lamp was smoking in a
foul-smelling room.
"Sarah!" called out my companion.
An old woman came hobbling out of a neighbouring room, and when she
heard what was wanted went off and fetched a heap of clothes. Amongst
them there was a suit which looked fairly respectable. It fitted me
pretty well, and in the natural order of things we began haggling
again. Fifty francs changed hands.
Then I gave the Ghetto man another gold piece.
"Now hurry up and get me a hat somewhere, a pair of boots, a collar and
a tie."
But here the fat old woman with her shrill voice began to make
difficulties. I was bringing misfortune on them. It was after business
hours anyway. I must not stay in the house any longer--it was far too
dangerous. "Allez vous en--allez vous en!"
The old lady began to get on my nerves, and I went willingly enough. At
the corner I waited for the old Jew. In ten minutes he came back, and
said that he could for twenty francs get me a really good outfit,
boots, an extra collar, a good hat and a pair of gloves; for an extra
twenty he could procure an excellent revolver. He got the money, and
after a short time came back with two bundles.
At the end of the next street there was the high wall of the
fortifications. From the inside I could climb over easily enough. The
drop to the ground on the other side was a pretty big one, but I landed
unhurt in the sand, in the middle of a palm grove. From the open
windows of a villa close to the grove a flood of light streamed, and I
could hear the merry sounds of a waltz. I could see the couples
dancing. Many officers were amongst them. But there was no danger of
being seen; it was pitch dark among the palms. In feverish haste I tore
off my uniform and put on the civilian clothes. They fitted me well. It
was quite a strange feeling fastening a collar and tie once more....
And when I had changed I nailed uniform and overcoat, and boots and
belt, and everything to a palm with the bayonet, wondering who would
find them in the morning!
I drew on my gloves and my toilet was complete. In the villa the band
(it was the Legion's band too) was playing a German waltz: "Das ist das
süsse Mädel...."
With a feeling very much akin to fright I walked to the nearest gate in
the fortification walls. The soldiers on guard there, however, did not
take the slightest notice of me. This gave me more confidence. Slowly
and unostentatiously I crossed the promenade as though I were merely a
respectable citizen out for a stroll. Légionnaires were promenading
everywhere. More than once I had to turn and make a detour to avoid
meeting non-commissioned officers of my own company. It was an exciting
walk. At last I had passed through the main streets and came to a
suburban road leading straight to the railway station. The little
station was quite deserted. I looked carefully about me to see whether
anybody was watching me, and then climbed down the steep embankment to
the railroad tracks, leading straight to the north to Oran.
In the meantime it had become quite dark. From afar the lights of the
station and of the switch-signals were shining; the lines themselves
lay hidden in pitch-darkness. I began to run. At first I kept stumbling
over the sharp stones between the rails and once I fell at full length.
Soon, however, I got the hang of the thing, springing from sleeper to
sleeper. I ran as hard as I could. A quarter of an hour, half an hour.
Then I had to stop, coughing and out of breath. It was beginning to
drizzle. The landscape was cloaked in inky darkness and there was only
a faint gleam of light on the horizon far behind me to show where
Sidi-bel-Abbès lay.... As far as I could tell I must have covered about
five kilometres. My feet were paining me. I drew off one of my boots
and found that there were long rows of nails sticking up inside and
that the soles were damp with blood. I tore up my handkerchief and made
a pad from the rags to cover the nails. But the horrible little
monsters bored through even this. Anyhow, it was far better than
before. I examined the revolver in my pocket and it was a pleasant
surprise to find that it was a capital weapon, a Browning pistol. The
old Jew, who certainly knew nothing about weapons, had, with the
revolver, atoned for his sins in the matter of boots!
Once more I started forward. My feet had to get accustomed to the nails
whether they liked it or not. From now on I kept up an alternate double
and walk, husbanding my strength as I had learnt to do in the Legion,
running five minutes at the double and then walking five minutes,
always following the railway's bee-line for the north. Once I heard the
roar of a train behind me and lay down flat in the sand by the rails.
Thus hour after hour went by. I had already passed three stations,
which merely consisted of a few houses which lay there deserted in the
darkness. As I passed a lonely signal-house a dog began to bark and I
started off in deadly terror, running like a madman till I had left the
beast tearing at his chain far behind me. How thankful I was for the
silence and darkness.... I breathed with difficulty, I had been running
so hard. My clothes were soaked with sweat, and when I stopped for a
moment to rest, an icy shiver passed over my whole body. But I pulled
myself together, for I wanted to reach a medium-sized station, where it
would not be so noticeable when I took a ticket for Oran.
The rain soon stopped again. And now the moon began to shine fitfully
through the gaps in the clouds, even this faint light being much more
than I cared about. A terrible fear of being seen by a police patrol
came over me. All at once the country became hilly. On either side of
the rails there lay mighty rocks, great jagged boulders of sandstone,
and I rejoiced in the shelter they gave me. I had been running for some
minutes between the rocks when I heard a strange noise. At first I
thought it was another train. But as the sound grew nearer and grew
clearer I knew what it was: galloping horses!
Through a gap in the rocks I could see the fine white line which marked
the road. It was scarcely a hundred yards away from the railway. On
this road a patrol was coming along at a gallop....
Had the police already seen me? Just before, where the country was
flat, my silhouette must have stood out sharply defined against the sky
in the moonlight.
In a paroxysm of fear I crawled in between two rocks and held my breath
to listen. The horses drew nearer and nearer, the beat of their hoofs
on the roadway ringing out loud and clear. Peeping out of my
hiding-place I could see the dark forms of horses and their riders. Now
they were up with me. I heard a sharp exclamation in Arabic. The three
men pulled up their horses and came to a halt.
I pulled out my pistol. The barrel shone in the moonlight. I hastily
covered up the weapon with my coat, for fear it should betray my
hiding-place. Then I carefully cocked the pistol and felt whether the
cartridge-frame was in order. A feeling of icy calmness came upon me. I
made up my mind not to stir from my hiding-place and not to fire until
the gendarmes were quite close to me in their search. I considered the
matter carefully. Two full cartridge-frames I took in my left hand,
ready to refill the chamber. My idea was to empty the magazine in quick
shooting in order to get in as many shots as possible before they
recovered from their surprise.
Down below some one lit a match. It burned for a moment only. I heard
one of the gendarmes laugh. Then the three men galloped forward again.
One of them must have asked his comrades for a match....
The noise of the galloping horses was soon lost in the distance, but
for a long time I sat trembling from head to foot between the two
rocks. The tears of over-excitement were running down my face as I put
up the pistol. I could have yelled for joy that this awful danger was
over. When I stood up again, I fell back against the rocks. My
trembling knees could not support my body....
* * * * *
Les Imberts was the name of the station. It was forty-two kilometres
distant from Sidi-bel-Abbès; in seven hours I had covered a distance of
about thirty English miles. When at four o'clock in the morning I
reached the station and deciphered its name and its distance from
Sidi-bel-Abbès in the darkness, there was not a human being to be seen.
The stillness of night still lay upon everything. A few hundred yards
from the station a number of freight cars stood. I jumped into one of
them and studied, lighting one match after another, the Algerian
time-table which my careful mother had sent me. The first train to Oran
went at a few minutes past five.
The first thing to be done was to care for my outer man a little. I
climbed out of the car again and found, after a long search, a barrel
half full of water standing under a shed. Day was just breaking. After
a very hurried wash I hid again in one of the cars, brushing my clothes
and cleaning my boots with my handkerchief. I was very glad of the
extra collar which my friend of the Ghetto had purchased. Finally I had
a look at myself in my tiny looking-glass. It would do! Indeed, the
effect was not half bad. It would do very well; decently dressed people
were scarce in Algeria....
At five o'clock I started on a roundabout route for the station. A
dozen people stood waiting on the platform, amongst them an Arab
policeman leaning lazily against the wall. I went straight up to the
ticket office.
"Oran--première classe!"
"Sept-soixante," said the official. "Seven francs and sixty centimes."
I jumped into the nearest first-class compartment, and found to my joy
that it was empty. The train started off. During the two hours' journey
from Les Imberts to Oran I brought my dress into decent order and
smoked innumerable cigarettes to drive away my sleepiness. At the
barrier in Oran a sergeant of Zouaves and a corporal of the Legion were
watching for deserters, but they didn't take the slightest notice of
me.
Until ten o'clock I wandered about the town. Then I went to the office
of the French Mediterranean line and took a second-class ticket for
Marseilles. The passenger boat _St. Augustine_ was due to start at
five in the afternoon.
All at once I became very sleepy. I could hardly keep my eyes open, but
I had not the courage to go to an hotel and rest there for a few hours.
So I went into a restaurant and enjoyed a long-drawn-out French dinner
and a bottle of heavy Burgundy. Suddenly I remembered that it would
look suspicious if I started on a sea voyage without any luggage. For a
few francs I procured a big valise whose paste-board sides looked
really "the same as leather," and bought newspapers at every corner to
stuff my "luggage" with.
At a few minutes to five I went on board the steamer. With a cigarette
between my lips and a bundle of newspapers under my arm I walked up and
down the deck, read _Le Rire_, and did all I could to assume a
careless mien. In reality I was in a very serious situation. The
question was: Had a telegram from the regiment with my description
reached Oran already or not?
The half-hour struck, but the _St. Augustine_ was still in dock.
Police came and went. All at once I felt myself go pale as death; a
patrol of four Zouave sergeants was coming up the gangway. They went
over the whole ship, looking carefully about them. Then they
interchanged a few words with the captain and went on again....
I was just beginning to breathe again, when a gendarme came up to me
and asked, saluting courteously:
"Monsieur is a Frenchman?"
"Non, monsieur, an Englishman," I answered quietly, and smiled at the
gendarme in spite of the icy fear gripping at my heart.
If he should chance on the idea of asking for my papers I was lost!
"Your name, please?"
"Eugene Sanders."
"Profession?"
"Engineer--from Tlemcen--on the way to Nice."
"Thank you."
... After a few minutes the ship's bell rang out, the gangways were
pulled in, and the screw began to revolve. I went into my cabin and
went to sleep. During the whole of the sea voyage I had not a single
thought, not a single hope, not a single fear--I merely slept.
As the _St. Augustine_ ran into harbour in Marseilles, a new
difficulty presented itself. What would the custom-house say to my
valise filled with paper? Luggage of this sort would have made anybody
suspicious.
Chance came to my aid. A number of boats crowded around the ship, and
several boatmen climbed on board to offer their services as porters,
and so on. I went up to one of them and told him that I wanted to be
put on shore as quickly as possible. Could he do it?
"For five francs," the fellow said.
"All right. Row me over."
My satchel I left on board to avoid the customs inspection.
A gangway had already been let down from the side of the steamer, and I
stepped down into the boat with my boatman. Ten minutes later I stood
on the "quai" in Marseilles. In another five minutes I had found a cab
and was on my way to the station. Half an hour later I was seated in a
compartment of an express train for the Riviera.
A Riviera journey in the darkness.... Toulon flew past--Cannes. In Nice
I could hear even in the railway-train the noise of the carnival which
was nearing its end--the platform was covered with confetti. We reached
Monaco--Monte Carlo, with its brilliantly illuminated casino.
At last we reached Ventimiglia: the first Italian station!
It was one o'clock in the morning. I stormed into the telegraph-office
and despatched two telegrams to my two dearest....
Free--free again!