CHAPTER XIVA NEW PRISON
There were few incidents of special interest during the first day of the march of these 250 prisoners toward the German border. Of course to persons unaccustomed to the sights and scenes in the blasted war zone, everything along the route must have been interesting. But to these men of several months’ experience, a landscape of unmarred beauty and order must have been a novelty worthy of observation.
Every town, village or hamlet that they passed through was partly or completely wrecked by shell explosions or fire. Most of the French inhabitants had fled, although here and there were a few who had been caught in the advancing wave of the invading army. Much of the open country was disfigured with shell holes and trenches, and many of the farm houses had been converted, wantonly it appeared, into heaps of charred woodwork, black masonry and ashes.
An hour before the dusk of evening they arrived at a small town that was in better conditionof physical preservation than any of the others they had passed through. Apparently it was used as a sort of way-station in the line of communications between the fighting front and the Rhine frontier.
There was no barbed wire inclosure for keeping the prisoners over night in this place, and so they were housed in buildings that showed no serious effects of recent bombardment. Phil and his two friends managed to keep close together during the march and were much gratified with the result of their efforts when they found themselves lodged in the same building for the night. They were given their unvarying breakfast-dinner-supper stew and stale bread shortly before dusk and then, together with a dozen others, were locked in a small house that undoubtedly, before the last big drive of the enemy, had been occupied by a French family of not more than three or four.
The house was bare. Every article of furniture had been removed. Not even a lamp with which to dispel the gloom of the place was to be found.
“There isn’t a bit of ventilation in this house,” declared one of the prisoners, whose name, it soon developed, was Arthur Evans.
“And we don’t dare try to open a window for fear one of the guards may try his marksmanshipat us,” said another who had been addressed in Phil’s hearing as Jerry Carey.
“It’s almost as big a menace as being gassed,” muttered another Marine, who answered to the name of Burns.
“I don’t suppose we fifteen men would exactly die in these tightly closed rooms in one night,” said Phil meditatively; “but I’m afraid we’d almost have to be carried out by morning. We’d better get our wits together and contrive some kind of vent that will make possible a current of air up through the chimney.”
“I’m in favor of smashing one of the windows with a shoe,” Burns announced. “We can all drop down flat on the floor and escape a volley from the guards if they fire in here.”
“Let’s try something else,” Phil proposed. “Here’s a trapdoor. Maybe it opens into a basement or cellar. Let’s see if we can’t get some air through that.”
There was no ring or handle of any kind with which to lift the door. So Phil hunted around until he found a small stick with which he was able to get a slight purchase and lifted the door until he was able to get hold of it with his fingers. A moment later the entire group of prisoners were gazing down into a dark holein which the only visible object was the upper part of a rude flight of steps.
“There’s no air in that place,” declared one of the Marines, sniffing in disgust at the scent of mold and must of the atmosphere in the cellar.
“I wish I had a light and I’d go down and explore it,” said Phil. “Who knows what we might find in it?”
“Some rotten apples and potatoes and a lot of mice and vermin, more’n likely,” prophesied Dan Fentress pessimistically.
“Oh, I agree with you there, and I agree also that it is hardly probable that I’d find anything worth while,” Phil replied. “Still, just to be doing something, I’d like to explore that hole in the ground. Remember, fellows, this is pretty nearly on the other side of the world from where we live. Consequently, everything we see and hear around, about, within and among these our approximate antipodes ought to interest us.”
“Nobody could say you nay after such poetic persuasion as that,” avowed one of the imprisoned Marines who thus far had been conspicuous principally because of his silence.
“I left a hard-headed friend unconscious back in Belleau Woods yesterday who had no use for poets in war,” Phil returned quickly.“He regarded them as worse than enemy spies, and I don’t know but that I agree with him. So, you see, you haven’t complimented me very much.”
“There seems to be a little light down there,” said Evans, who had been peering into the cellarway while the others were engaged in what he regarded as profitless palaver. “There must be a window in the cellar wall, and as it isn’t dark yet, probably a wee bit of daylight is filtering through.”
“I’m going down and feel about with my hands,” Phil announced, placing one foot on the top step. “If there’s any light at all down there, I’ll get the benefit of it after my eyes have got accustomed to conditions. So here’s hoping that I’ll find something of more value than rotten apples.”
“I hope you’ll find a keg o’ cider,” said Evans, smacking his lips.
Phil had descended no more than half a dozen steps when he stopped with a low exclamation of interest.
“What’s up?” asked Emmet Harding.
“There’s a shelf here right beside the stairway and several things on it. I’ll hand them up to you, and you see what they are.”
The first article that Phil laid, his hands on was a short housewife’s paring knife. As hehad been deprived of his own jackknife when searched behind the boche lines, he decided to appropriate this valuable kitchen tool to his own use and put it into a pocket of his coat. The next was a small wooden box, which the finder passed up to one of the fellows who reached down to receive it.
“Candles!” announced the latter eagerly, for there was no lid on it and the contents were plainly visible in the twilight.
“You don’t say!” exclaimed Phil, returning to the top of the stairway eagerly.
“You bet I do,” answered the other, holding up one of the sticks of molded wax. “There must be a dozen here.”
“What good will they do unless somebody has a match?” inquired Evans skeptically. “I bet there isn’t a match in this crowd.”
A hurried search by everybody present confirmed this bit of pessimism.
“Never mind,” said Phil quietly; “I’m going to light one of those candles without a match.”