My adventures during the late war

by Donat Henchy O'Brien

I immediately apprised Messrs. Tuthill, Brine, and Ashworth, of my success, when they also persuaded the guard to let them join in celebrating the birth-night. I was afraid that their application would create suspicion, and prevent even my joining the party; but I was glad to find that the very reverse was the case. My celebrity for stratagems in effecting escapes was unhappily so great that any request I might make immediately conjured up a host of confused suspicions; but when poor Monsieur Buché found so many wishing to celebrate the birth-night, he concluded that there really was a birth-night to celebrate, although it might have struck a more sapient brain that it was rather an absurdity for men to celebrate anything who had scarcely sufficient food to put in their mouths.

However, it was not our business to be too curious, and I descended with my companions. As we approached the cave, my ears were struck with the din of merriment, which was artfully assumed in order to prevent the sentinels hearing the noise of chisels, saws, and other tools, that I concluded were hard at work. Some were singing or shouting, others dancing, others were making their dogs howl and bark, and by no gentle means; and the deception was so admirably kept up that the gaoler and guards might have supposed that there was a boisterous saturnalia celebrating amongst their prisoners. Before seven we were in the midst of these “merry fellows,” and our guard locked us all in together, laughing that we English could make ourselves so happy upon little or nothing. We had taken a few necessaries with us for the night, which could not be observed, in our pockets.

Our friends received us with open arms, and admired our perseverance. I found they were getting on rapidly; the miners were very active. One door was already forced. The second door was an immense iron one; it was impossible to break through it; the miners had therefore worked away the earth and rock under it. It was half-past ten before we got a hole large enough for a small man to creep through, which enabled him to force the bolts and bars at the opposite side and to open the door. This man, whose name was Daly, was afterwards a navy agent, and lived at Greenwich: he escaped from Verdun with, I believe, Dr. Clarke, and landed safely in England. The principal obstacles were now removed in every one’s opinion, and there remained but two slight doors more to impede our advancing to a subterraneous passage that led out of the fort. This was a very intricate communication, and we had to feel our way to those slight doors, as it was dangerous to have candle-light.

Some unfortunate English prisoners, owing to treachery amongst themselves, had been sabred in the same passage years before, in a vain attempt to escape during the night. How valuable would a dark-lanthorn have been now! Everybody, except the few that were appointed to force the doors, were preparing for their escape. It was nearly midnight. Our over-eagerness in forcing the third door shot the bolt back, which caused a noise that was overheard by the sentinels outside. This occasioned a general alarm to be instantly beat—all hopes were at an end. “What unfortunate wretches!” were the only words that could be heard, everybody endeavouring to get to his respective place before the guards entered. Those who were all over dirt tried to strip and hide their clothes; the confusion was great in all parts of the cave; the running against one another, mistaking each other’s beds, and clothes, etc., was quite ludicrous. The visitors were, of all others, worst off: their friends, whom they came to spend the evening with, had no beds to offer them. The doors were now opening, the guards entering, and I, who was all over dirt, was rambling about without being able to find any place to creep into. By accident I stumbled over a bed, and I instantly crawled under the blankets, with my boots and all my clothes on. The guards passed close by me, even before I had settled myself; but they were too intent upon reaching the spot from whence they imagined they had heard the noise. In our cave, at this time, everything was silent. You might have heard a pin drop. Every prisoner seemed fast asleep, and one or two were even snoring. By the guard’s light, as they passed, I found that I had got into the bed of a servant, an American named Clarke. He was so intolerably intoxicated (they managed that night to get some snique, or brandy, smuggled in) that I was a long time before I could rouse him; and when he was awake, I had as much difficulty in making him understand who I was, and why I had got into his bed. I dreaded lest the stupefied fellow might utter some ejaculation that might expose everything. Fortunately, however, as soon as he was able to understand what I said, he desired me to cover my face, and assisted me to conceal myself as well as he could. It afterwards appeared that he had gone to bed fully aware of the part he was to play the next morning, and that he had got a little drunk to give him courage for his enterprise; and as in drunkenness a little always leads to more, he had at last got very drunk, under the delusion that he would recover himself before the time of decamping arrived. This is the common self-deception, I believe, of all incipient drunkards.

On discovering that the first door had been opened, the commanding officer of the searching party said, with a sneer, “That he would give us weeks to get through the next;” meaning the ponderous, massive iron door which I have already described. On advancing a few paces, one of the guards proclaimed, with a horrid oath, that even the iron door had been forced. This put the officer in a furious passion, and he swore outrageously against the “sacrés coquins, les Anglais,” uttering a tirade of oaths upon his resolution to discover the chiefs of such a horrible conspiracy. “Where are the visitors?” cried he, in a furious voice. “Where are those who, I understand, prevailed on the gendarmes to be admitted to the cell? They must be the authors of this horrible business, or complot.”

Passion is never rational, or it would have taught this officer that those who had been admitted as visitors for only one evening could not have been the authors of a plot that must have been in active operation for many days, or weeks, or even months.

The infuriated officer called over the muster-roll of the visitors, and Tuthill, Ashworth, and O’Brien resounded from his angry lungs. I was too old a sailor to notice the first call. The first two officers were so indiscreet as to answer. They thought that as they were stripped and in bed they could escape suspicion. But far different was the result. They were ordered to get up, put on their clothes, and, under very rough usage, they were about to be conducted to what had been my former habitation—the dungeon. Again did the enraged officer repeat my name—O’Brien. Poor Mr. Brine answered to the call; and he was, without ceremony, ordered to dress, and compelled to join the other two. Again did the name of O’Brien resound from the lips of the enraged officer; but Mr. O’Brien had no more inclination to answer to the call than he had had at first. The drunken servant had sufficiently recovered himself to understand the whole scene, and he played his part with great tact. I remained under the bed-clothes, whilst he sat up with his knees so raised as to prevent the possibility of discovering me. He protested that he was alone in bed; and appearances favouring his assertion, the guards did not trouble him, but passed on to the next bed. For my part, I saw no prospect of escaping, as the searchers were well aware of my being below, and I was frequently on the point of jumping up and joining my comrades, who were now put on march for the dungeon. The intoxicated servant shrewdly observed, “That it would be time enough to join that party when I was discovered, and that I ought to wait patiently the result.” I found a good deal of reason in what he said, and remained quiet. There were three or four more ringleaders (as they called them) discovered by the clay and soil found about their garments, and the whole were escorted to the direful dungeon. The doors were then locked, sentinels being placed on those that had been broken open. I expected that the guards would return to search for another set of ringleaders, and I remained full of anxiety waiting their arrival. In the meantime, I was of opinion that it would be as well to take my boots and clothes off. I accordingly stripped, and concealed those that were full of earth and dirt in different parts of the souterrain. Some time elapsed, yet no return of the guards disturbed me. I composed myself as well as I could: my bedfellow left me in full possession, and I fell into a profound sleep.

When I awoke it was daylight. The usual hour for allowing the prisoners to breathe the fresh air had arrived; but the doors were not opened as before: and they were soon informed that they would be kept locked down, until they thought proper to deliver up the names of all those who had intended to escape on the preceding night. The prisoners laughed at such a proposition, since there was nothing more certain than that all who had been capable of walking would have embraced so excellent an opportunity of regaining their liberty. On second consideration, it was agreed to give only the names of those already in the dungeon, they being certain of punishment. The commandant would not credit the assertion of so small a number of names, and the souterrain was kept locked. At all events, I was sure of being missed from my room, as there was no possibility of getting back to it. At eleven o’clock they generally mustered us—the gendarme who gave us permission to go down was in confinement, and it appeared that he had not given the correct names in the beginning, and had not been interrogated particularly afterwards, which accounted for the mistake between my name and Mr. Brine’s. However, the moment which left me no hope or possibility of avoiding detection was quickly approaching.

At nine o’clock, the commandant, Monsieur Clement, and all the other officers of the garrison, descended in order to ascertain the havoc that the English prisoners had made in the engineering of the fortification.

They found, of our tools, only an old piece of a saw, one solitary hammer, and a few chisels, and they all expressed their astonishment at our having made such great progress through such massive obstructions in so short a time, and with such few and bad implements. During this investigation I had a great deal of difficulty to conceal myself; and, although I succeeded, I knew that eventually it could not be of any use, for that when eleven o’clock arrived my fate would be decided.