The future looked black and hopeless. Imprisonment threatened to be absolutely endless when a rift broke through the clouds and a change in the situation seemed to favour the chance of escape. General Wirion, who was still in the ascendant, was at enmity with the town of Verdun and out of spite strongly recommended that the depot of prisoners should be removed bodily to Metz. Napoleon, however, owed Metz a grudge for not supporting him when he sought the suffrages of the city to endorse his assumption of the Imperial Crown, and he refused to help it at the expense of Verdun. Wirion, foiled in this direction, decided to injure Verdun by reducing its numbers. He transferred new arrivals elsewhere; he banished all he could condemn as offenders to Bitche, and finally made a great sweep out of the midshipmen on the plea that they were trés mauvais sujets and that Verdun was too weak to hold them. All of these youngsters, including Mr. Boys, were put under orders to proceed to other prisons, Valenciennes, Givet and Sarrelouis, the two first on the northern, the third on the eastern frontier of France.
“The northern expedition being ready,” says Boys, “we were placed two and two upon bundles of straw in five wagons and set out escorted by the greater part of the horse gendarmerie of the district, aided by the infantry.... Four horse gensdarmes formed the van and four the rear guard, one on each side of every wagon, and twenty foot soldiers in files, with others in each carriage, made up the escort, the commander bringing up the rear on his charger. Whenever the road passed by a wood, which frequently occurred, we were halted to give the infantry time to occupy its skirts; two gensdarmes on each side were posted midway while the rest displayed their pistols somewhat ostentatiously by way of intimidation. I have been thus minute in detailing the strength and manner of the escort, not only to contrast it with similar detachments in England, where twice the number of prisoners with infinitely greater facilities of escape might be safely entrusted to the car of a sergeant’s guard, but also to show how fully persuaded Wirion was that some of us would make the attempt.”
All along the route the prisoners except when put upon their honour were on the alert to jump out of their wagons and run away, but no opportunity offered until they were safely lodged in the fortress of Valenciennes, which was reached on the 17th August, 1808. The trés mauvais sujets were lodged apart in a small house within the citadel where fourteen hundred seamen also occupied barracks crowded into the space of an acre, and no one was suffered to go beyond these limits. Escape from this citadel appeared quite impossible. It was enclosed by a wet ditch, merely one foot of water lying over six feet of mud, and to swim across was out of the question. The citadel had two gates, one to the south and one to the north, with a strong guard at both. There was another sally port in the western rampart leading into an outwork, thence into a garden, and opening at length into the country.
For months Mr. Boys waited, reconnoitering his ground and vainly seeking to persuade some of his comrades to join him in his bold adventure. It seemed too hazardous and difficult of execution and the officers to whom he opened his mind one and all declined to become concerned in the enterprise. His desire got wind and became common gossip, so much so that it reached the ears of the secret police, a very active and inquisitive agency in all the French prisons, and Boys was closely watched. To disarm suspicion he sent for all his heavy baggage and his greyhounds which had been left at Verdun, and seemed determined to make his home at Valenciennes. These hounds were of much assistance to him in planning his escape. The gensdarmes were sportsmen and borrowed the dogs but they would not work without their master, so Boys was suffered to take part in drawing the neighbourhood and thus learned much of the lay of the land outside the fortress. He decided now not to attempt departure by the northern sally port but resolved to climb into the upper citadel and scale the eastern fortifications. Companions still hesitated to join him, but he began his preparations notwithstanding. Tools, provisions, a map of the surrounding country,—all were laid in, secretly obtained through a friend living in the town. A rope was still wanting, but he bought up all the skipping lines of the French children who were much given to this diversion, and it attracted no suspicion, and he soon had length enough to lower him from the top of the breastwork to the drawbridge leading to the upper citadel. The number of courses of bricks in the wall had been counted and an approximate calculation made. The same good friend in the town arranged to have iron handles fixed to a pair of steel boat-hooks, which were to be used as picklocks. A second rope was required and secured by a stratagem. There was a draw-well in the midshipmen’s yard with a worn and nearly unserviceable rope which was rendered utterly useless by hacking at the straw. A subscription was opened and a new rope supplied which would be ready for use at the supreme moment.
At length fresh overtures made to other prisoners led to the grudging assent of two midshipmen to join in the expedition, a third after long hesitation also agreed, and a fourth youngster becoming possessed of the secret immediately proposed himself, thus making up a party of five. The projected escape, although surrounded with difficulties, did not seem impracticable. It meant scaling the inner wall, ascending the parapet unseen by lynx-eyed sentinels and patrols ever on the alert, to chop down two ramparts each forty-five feet in height, to cross two drawbridges and force two or more doors with ponderous locks. The obstacles to be surmounted might well have daunted the stoutest hearts, yet these brave spirits chafing at their prolonged confinement, losing sea service, and precluded from taking part in the war, were willing to face them, resolved to surmount and persevere with unflinching constancy to the bitter end.
The 15th November was chosen for the enterprise, a dark and stormy night, a fresh wind blowing and not a star to be seen; the leaves were falling in abundance, raising a rustling noise on the stones which deadened the sound of footsteps. The fugitives met in the common room to bid adieu to their comrades remaining behind, who seeing them equipped for the road, knapsack on back and rope slung on the shoulder of one of them, were disposed to jeer and laugh at their boast that they meant to be at home within ten days’ time. But they entered into the spirit of the thing and next morning at the regular muster when their comrades were missing answered for them, “Partis pour l’Angleterre” (started for England).
The start was made at 8 P. M. Every fugitive carried a clasp knife and a small packet of fine pepper, the first for defence if attacked, the latter to be thrown into the eyes of their assailants to cover retreat. Boys and another were to go first to fix ropes and open doors, the rest to follow after an interval of a quarter of an hour; if the leaders were shot the rest could retire in safety; if they in their turn were detected, the others ahead might still gain the open country. All drew their stockings over their shoes to deaden the sound of their movements. Those ahead carried the rope and a couple of stakes on which to fasten it. They surmounted the first wall, passed through a garden, crossed a road and silently climbed the bank at the back of the north guardroom on their hands and feet. They were now at the highest point and in danger of being seen by some of the many sentries, but these for shelter from the bitter wind nestled close inside their boxes carefully crying aloud every quarter of an hour, “Sentinelle prenez garde à vous,” the French equivalent for “all’s well.”
The stakes, one of them a poker, were driven into the earth on the slant, one behind the other, and the eyelet hole of the draw-well rope slipped over, the other end being dropped into the giddy abyss till it touched the drawbridge below. Boys, who was the first to descend, was three parts down when a brick fell, struck against the side and rebounded on to his chest. This luckily he caught between his knees and carried along without noise. Then he crossed the bridge and waited for Hunter, who descended with equal care and silence. Opposite was the entrance to the ravelin, an arched passage ending in a massive door, securely bolted, against which the picklock was useless, and failure seemed imminent unless they reascended by the rope and tried elsewhere. They thought of dropping into the canal and floating along on their backs—an impossible feat, “there being too little water to swim and too much mud to ford it.” Then a bright idea came to them, to undermine a passage under the door and with their pocket knives they slowly and painfully effected this, being reinforced at the work by the arrival of their companions.
Creeping through the aperture, they followed the passage till they met the drawbridge at the end. It was raised but there was room to climb over and pass to the far side by the garde-fous or bars serving as rails for the bridge. A second arched passage led under the ravelin and ended in another great door which, luckily for them, had been left unlocked by the gensdarmes. They were now in the upper citadel and all that remained was to lower themselves over the last rampart and so down to the crown of the glacis. Two narrow escapes ensued: the stake on the cope of the parapet holding the rope gave way, and Boys would have fallen fifty feet had he not caught and held himself by the long grass. One of the others nearly lost himself but Boys took his weight upon arm and shoulder and saved him. They were now free of the fort, having accomplished a perilous and laborious work in less than four hours.
It is needless and would be wearisome to follow their progress in detail. They crossed the glacis, gained the high road and were brought to a stop by the closed gates of a walled town; entering the ditch they discovered a subterranean passage and found a secure asylum among the rubbish of some old works. The map told them when daylight came that this was part of the fortifications of Tournay, and after a long rest, feeling they were quite safe for the time being, they fared forth at dusk making for Courtrai and reached it next morning, having now traversed twenty-five miles of the whole distance of sixty that had interposed between them and the sea coast on starting. But the river Lys was in front of them and could not be passed at this fortress town; it was necessary to follow its downward course by the right bank as far as Deynze where they lay in a wood until they mustered up courage to enter the town. Here they gave themselves out as conscripts marching to Ghent and found both food and shelter at a low public house. At four o’clock in the morning, rested and fortified with supplies, they crossed the river and took the direct road to Bruges, twenty miles distant, with only ten miles to the coast at Blankenberg, hard by Ostend.