Captivity and Escape

by Jean Martin

The day dawned at last when, all round the camp, stakes two metres high stood white, shining and aggressive against the dark trunks of the sweet-smelling firs so soothing with their beauty. The electricians, recruited from our professionals, were told to lay the wires which were to surround and support the electrified fencing. Pataud counselling a strike was never more listened to, never more obeyed, than were our friends who encouraged the engineers to waste time. For a long while one might have thought that the installation would never be finished, and again the hope sprang that peace would find this barbarity still in its first stage.

But one fine day to our horror we saw the ends of the wire being joined. The circuit was complete, the prison was shut for ever.

For one moment there was consternation amongst the wood-gatherers. They could no longer get near the firs, and all stood there, with mouths open, like sleepers rudely awakened from their dreams.

Then, as in all difficult circumstances, in the time of need a man was found, “the man of the hour,” Claude, a timid collector of twigs, a man so shy that he only dared to warm one hand at a time, rose up and showed what was hidden in his heart.

Inspired by a flash of genius, and helped by an indomitable will, he prepared to act. With an authority never suspected till now, he grouped around him some of those who only yesterday had pushed him on one side and looked at him disdainfully when he asked for a little of the heat for his frozen limbs—heat that was in principle for all, but in fact was the right of the strongest. One scarcely knew anything of him. All day long he used to go searching for wood, and it was only towards evening that he came with his load. And his load was always the heaviest; it was a sort of insult and reproach to those who stayed all day in the best places and warmed themselves with the wood that their comrades had gathered. It was a little too strong for this small puny man to want to teach them a lesson. The strong are made thus! They cherish an unutterable contempt for those who serve them, and a sovereign disdain for those who, out of love, become their slaves.

Well, Claude put himself at the head of a handful of men, who followed him meekly. Like a captain sure of victory he led the phalanx. Near a shed he stopped and leaned down under a window.

For one instant he sought for a mark, then he began to dig a hole in the sand with his hands. Soon something glittered. With a glance round, Claude made sure that his associates kept good watch, then he triumphantly exhibited a small hand-saw in a perfect state. This tool—between us, be it said—had been looked for by the Germans some days before, as they were hastening to finish the huts. However, an earnest and clamorous search by the authorities had brought no information as to the lost tool. Only one man could have cleared up the mystery, and he had determined to keep silent.

With, the saw in his hand, and escorted by his bodyguard, the leader continued his march. They halted near one of the new boundary posts, and Claude who, from his serious air, might have been a field-marshal at least, took a folding measure from his pocket. The importance of his mission gave him added stature. He no longer resembled the suppliant of yesterday begging for a corner near the fire. With skilled hands he measured the part of the post above the electric wire. As he was on the point of making a mark immediately above the isolators, he stopped and murmured something about “making a good job of it,” and made the groove five centimetres higher. “Five from twenty-five,” he murmured, “leaves twenty.”

Some passing German officers stopped to watch the men at work, astonished and at the same time pleased at seeing our soldiers diligent and serious, not at all their usual behaviour.

For a long time Claude measured, for a long time the saw worked, and one by one the tops of the posts fell. These twenty centimetres of strong post would certainly make a splendid log, so the men worked as hard as possible, one sawing, another carrying. Depots of firewood were organised, and till the evening they worked without stopping, hoarding the precious logs, which after all were fully equal to dead branches.