Captivity and Escape

by Jean Martin

CHAPTER VIII

SLOWLY but with terrible certainty the work of encircling us went on day by day. A month ago we had seen experts wandering round the barbed-wire fence which enclosed us. Then the surveyors had followed, and here and there, at regular intervals, had dug up spadefuls of earth. A certain inactivity followed, which, in spite of every experience, raised a faint hope in the heart of the prisoners.

But when some of our comrades appeared in the camp carrying pickaxes and spades, hope vanished.

Slowly, very slowly, as if to show their regret, the squad went to the first landmark. There they halted, and the tools were thrown on the ground. The sentinels, dressed in brown overcoats, ornamented at the collar by a black number on a red background, stood with their guns slung on their shoulders, and shivered as they filled their pipes.

Already those who were curious hurried up, and, recognising some of their comrades amongst the workers, began to talk to them, in spite of the sentinels who, from fear of disturbances, kept the two groups apart. From one side and the other exclamations burst forth. To show their sympathy for their comrades forced to work, some teasingly congratulated them on the haste they had shown to go and work for the Boches. The others described their efforts to get out of the group of able-bodied men, their various adventures and finally their capture. In any case they assured their questioners of their firm determination not to outrival the German workman! The gaiety, the vivacity and the wit of these men were in striking contrast to the heaviness and sour looks of the guard. Then the idlers asked for “tips,” but even the workmen who knew the most could tell them nothing; they only knew one thing, that which brute force taught them—they had got to do the work. But all of them shook their heads sadly, as if to say: “It’s a bad job.” Nobody indeed was ignorant of the object of this work, for it had been long talked about. Some weeks before an interpreter had got wind of it, and the news that he brought back spread through the camp like wildfire. At first all cried out at such an invention, for good sense and humanity revolted against it, and maintained it was impossible. Electricians amongst us discussed it, and could not believe in it—it was impracticable. To begin with, the installation would cost too much, and then it would be a crime to leave at hand a constant danger of death. The Germans were brutes, it was well known, but even they would never dare to encircle their prisoners by a current of 5000 volts. The rumour was, unfortunately, true.

Only the evening before, a well-known man in the French colony had somewhat reassured the timorous by his learned arguments, and now the nightmare had become reality. The jailers, jealous of their sandy soil, begrudged a few feet to our prisoners, already cramped in a place whose narrow limits were terribly oppressive. All round the perimeter the Germans were going to cut off three or four metres to make an impassable barrier; inside a double enclosure of barbed wire they were going to install a third line of electrified wire which would ensure death to any one touching it. Everybody lamented the loss of this narrow run of earth, which was the promenade, the boulevard, the forum. There we walked as far as possible to the outside of the camp, our eyes turned towards the neighbouring forest, into which we gazed longingly, and the sight of which enabled some of us to enjoy the illusion of liberty. The eyes which turned from the hideous tents, where we lived crowded together, lit up sometimes with a brighter glance at the happy remembrance of a walk with our dear ones in a similar forest far away. This illusion, this shadowy remembrance, was to be taken from us! We had been able until now, by approaching near enough, to overlook one barrier, but the presence of three lines of barbed wire between us and the forest would destroy its lure, and increase the weight of our chains and the misery of our captivity.

It was on this promenade surrounding the camp that we met in the morning when work did not claim us. It was there that we walked, to and fro chatting with friends about the probable length of the war and our chances of victory. Optimistic speakers, in discourses backed by irrefutable arguments, with well-founded reasonings, succeeded in keeping up hope in the hearts of the discouraged. There it was, that at the end of the day, when it began to get dark, we assembled, and in low voices, like conspirators, commented on the news contained in our letters from France, made out like so many puzzles from ambiguous sentences, and the news learnt from the men who worked outside the camp. And last of all, in the evening, before fires were put out, when the greater number of us had gone to seek forgetfulness in sleep, came those who sought for a moment’s solitude, to calm the anguish which tortured the soul. We kept our gaiety for our comrades during the day; but in the evening we could, without being cowardly, give ourselves up to the discouragement that overwhelmed us. And again it was there that we came to mourn for those who had fallen. We ground our teeth in thinking of the crimes of the Hun and our powerlessness at not being able to go to the help of the oppressed or the avenging of the dead.

These few feet of sand were sanctified to us by the noble feelings that we had had there. They belonged to us, they formed our temple. It was a sacrilege to deprive us of them.

To those who had planned flight, this work was the ruin of their hopes, and each blow of the pickaxe sounded as the last turn of the key by an unfeeling jailer to him condemned to die. Never had the men been a prey to such agony as they now felt, for before hope had sustained them; now the last chance of escape was gone.

There were other prisoners who, with sad eyes and looks of gloom, watched anxiously the preparations. Our poor humanity is not exclusively composed of dreamers and visionary lovers of liberty; it includes practical people who enjoy bodily comforts, and when they cannot enjoy the hot rays of the sun, like to warm their numbed limbs at a flaming fire. For them the electric barrier meant simply a lack of fuel.