Under the Chilian Flag: A Tale of War between Chili and Peru

by Harry Collingwood

This ceremony having been finished, several armourers made their appearance, with hammers and cold chisels, and proceeded to knock off the prisoners’ leg-irons, so that they would be able to march. Then the unhappy men were manacled together in groups of a dozen by means of a long chain to which their right wrists were fastened. Jim, seeing that this process was in progress, unostentatiously moved from where he was standing and took up a position in the midst of a number of naval officers whom he knew, and who had already been making covert signs for him to do so. It thus fell out, as he had hoped, that he was manacled to a group of men whom he already knew, and he determined to lose no time in discussing with them plans for a possible escape.

There was no opportunity for that just at present, however; for his group was practically the last to be attended to; and, directly their chains had been riveted on, the whole body was formed up in a solid square. They were then surrounded by the troops, the order to march was given, and the entire company wheeled to the right off the Plaza into the Calle de los Angeles, down which they proceeded at a rapid pace.

The low hum of conversation immediately broke out among the Chilians, and it was not checked by their guards; therefore, although it was impossible at present to discuss anything of a private nature, Jim took the opportunity to ask his friends if they had any information as to the fate in store for them, beyond the fact that they were destined for the mines. He found, however, that the latter fact was practically all that was known. They were to be taken, in the first place, he learned, to the recently erected station at Callao, and then put in the train for Lima. There they were to be imprisoned in the castle for one or two nights, until a second detachment of Chilian prisoners should have arrived from the south, and then the whole body was, as far as could be ascertained, to be marched direct to Sorata by way of Yanyos, Huancavelica, Guantanga, Cuzco, and Santa Rosa. This constituted a journey of some six hundred miles, the whole of which was to be accomplished on foot! Truly a pleasant prospect! But Jim vowed to himself that it would not be his fault if he did even as much as a sixth of that distance before he escaped. He therefore caused the word to be passed round among his fellow-officers, to whom he was manacled, that he wished to have a private talk with them upon the first occasion that offered; and their nods of comprehension assured him that they pretty clearly understood for what purpose the conversation was to be held.

But they had, by this time, arrived at the railway station, and the detachment was halted in the goods-yard just outside. Although regular passenger communication had not yet been established between Callao and the capital, there had been for some time a line of railway for the purpose of carrying merchandise from the coast to Lima; and when the war began this line was seized upon by the military authorities for the purpose of transporting stores and soldiers. A huge, gloomy barrack of a station had been built, together with a number of auxiliary goods-sheds for the purpose of holding the war material; and it was among these sheds that the Chilians found themselves halted. The tedious process of calling the roll was then again gone through, and by the time that that was finished a shrill whistle, accompanied by much blowing-off of steam, and the clank of coupling-chains, announced that the train was being drawn up.

Presently it came in sight round a curve, bumping and jolting over the points, and Jim saw that it was made up of a number of goods-trucks, to which no covering whatever had been attached, so that the unhappy prisoners would be exposed, during the whole of their journey, to the fierce rays of an almost vertical sun, and, as some of the men had already been without water for twelve hours, and there seemed to be no prospect of getting any before their arrival at Lima, it looked as though their journey, short as it was to be, would prove a never-to-be-forgotten one.

The Chilians were now formed up in two long lines, one on each side of the set of metals on which the train was approaching; and, as soon as it steamed into its place, they were ordered to get on board. Manacled as they were in groups of twelve, this was necessarily a very tedious process, and two hours elapsed before the prisoners were all stowed away. It was then found that too few wagons had been provided, and, as there were no more procurable, the consequent crushing was terrible. But it had one advantage, which was, that the Peruvians were obliged to send a much smaller guard of soldiers than they would otherwise have done, for the simple reason that there was no room for more; and, as all the Chilians had now stowed themselves away and it would have taken too long a time to rearrange them, all the guards had to go in the last truck, instead of being distributed all over the train. This gave the prisoners the opportunity that some of them were looking for to have a little private conversation; but there was no present chance of escape; for the Peruvians with their rifles could fire from one end of the train to the other, and thus speedily put an end to any attempts of the sort.

The train was on the point of starting when one poor thirsty wretch began to cry out most piteously for a drink of water; and in a second all the others were also clamouring for some. But the Peruvians merely laughed at their entreaties, telling them that it would do them good to be without for a while, and that they would appreciate their drink all the more when they got to Lima. The signal was then given, the whistle blew, and the melancholy procession moved out of Callao station, to the accompaniment of ironical cheers and wishes for a safe and happy journey from the soldiery and such of the townspeople as had come to witness the departure.

The pace of the train was positively snail-like, and, as the engine had no tender attached, and burned wood instead of coal, the stoppages in order to replenish with fuel were very numerous. At the same time, it being now high noon, the vertical sun streamed down upon the uncovered trucks until they resembled so many ovens. The intense heat, coupled with the inordinate length of time occupied by the journey, reduced some of the prisoners, especially those who had been without water for many hours, to the verge of frenzy. Their supplications for water would have moved the hearts of any but the brutal Peruvian guards, whose canteens were full of spirit and water, and who constantly refreshed themselves therefrom, tortured the thirsty prisoners by holding the water-bottles up to their gaze, and then pouring the contents down their own throats. Gradually a low moan of pain and misery made itself heard in one of the trucks, which soon spread to the others as the miserable men became unable to bear their tortures any longer in silence.

“By Jove!” exclaimed Jim, “this is awful; what fiends these Peruvians are! We have never treated our prisoners of war as these fellows are doing; I wish I had some water to give them, but unfortunately I have none; moreover, I am nearly perishing with thirst myself. Dozens of these men are wounded, you know, Carlos,” he continued, to a brother officer who was sitting next to him, “and their sufferings must be awful; some of them will go mad before we get to Lima. Hallo! quick there, stop that man!” he yelled, as a haggard-looking Chilian soldier staggered to his feet, his eyes blazing with insanity.

But Douglas’s warning came too late. The Englishman had understood instinctively what the maddened wretch was about to do, and shouted his warning, but the men were packed so closely that there was no opportunity to save him. Before a single individual could rise to his feet the Chilian, manacled by one wrist as he was, had flung himself over the end of the truck and, falling between the metals, was now being dragged along by the train, his shrieks of agony filling all who heard them with horror. The soldier happened to be the end man of his group, and his length of chain was rather longer than that connecting the other members of that particular party; but he had nearly dragged the man next to him to a similar fearful death, for the poor fellow, half crazed with terror, was hanging over the end of the truck with his arm nearly torn from its socket by the corpse trailing on the line. His companions, however, seized him by the body, while several strove to disconnect the chain which fettered him to the awful object trailing beneath the train.