Prolonged captivity, with such a creature in authority, was likely to become even worse than it had been before; and so, to their cost, the captives at Verdun speedily found.
All indulgences allowed by the first commandant were removed. Prisoners and détenus alike, no matter what their grade or position, were compelled twice a day to report themselves at appel, unless they preferred by payment to escape the unpleasant necessity. Instead of being free to walk or drive as far as five miles from the town in any direction, they now might not leave the gates without payment of six francs. Incessant douceurs were demanded on every possible pretext, and oppressions, bribery, and rank injustice became the order of the day. Wirion and his gendarmes showed a shameless capacity for pocketing money—nay, for inventing opportunities to wring gifts from the English.
Again and again numbers of the détenus, on some false excuse or with no excuse at all, were closely imprisoned in the citadel, being set free only on the payment of heavy sums of money. This terror hung over them all, as a perpetual possibility. Worse still was the dread of being some day suddenly despatched to the grim fortress of Bitche, where numbers of British prisoners pined in close confinement. The tales of Bitche dungeons and of Bitche horrors, which from time to time filtered round to those who lived at Verdun, read now like stories of mediæval days.[3]
And Roy was still at Verdun. Every effort to get a passport for him had failed. In that direction Colonel Baron would thankfully have paid aught in his power, if thereby he might have sent his boy safe to England. But the time was gone by. Napoleon was very bitter against England; and passports were refused to almost all who requested them.
As a writer of the day states, France had become one huge prison, not only to such English as were compelled to stay there, but also to the French themselves. If a Frenchman wished to leave his country and to go elsewhere, leave would in most cases be refused. As conscripts in the army men might go; seldom otherwise.
In the autumn of 1805, not many weeks before the battle of Trafalgar, a fresh blow fell.
Roy had felt his captivity much, boyishly gay though he was and rarely to be seen out of spirits. But he had had Denham all through; and Denham, though commonly looked upon as a grave and dignified man, had been to Roy the most delightful of companions.
From the spring of 1803 to the autumn of 1805 the two had been seldom apart for a whole day. Denham had been Roy's tutor, friend, and playfellow. Roy had in the place one or two boy-friends; but, compared with Denham, he cared little for any other. His absolute devotion to Ivor somewhat resembled Jack Keene's adoration for John Moore, only it meant greater personal intimacy. Roy was known among friends as “Captain Ivor's shadow” and “Captain Ivor's echo.” What Denham thought, Roy thought; what Denham said, Roy said.
“I don't know what he would do without you,” Colonel Baron sometimes said gratefully to Ivor. “No use to say how much we owe to your kindness. You have been the making of the boy.”
Ivor would reply, “Roy is as much to me as I am to him.” And, in a sense this might be true, though not in all senses.