Through Russian Snows: A Story of Napoleon's Retreat from Moscow by G. A. Henty (ebook reader 8 inch .txt) 📗

bought not only by the townspeople, but by pedlars, who carried them through the country. The prices obtained were small, but they afforded a profit over the money laid out in materials, sufficient to purchase tobacco and other little luxuries—the introduction of spirits into the prison being, however, strictly forbidden. Of more importance than the money they earned, was the relief to the tedium of their life in the work itself. Julian found a similar relief in studying French. There were some among the prisoners who spoke the language far better than did the mate, and after three months' work with the latter, Julian was advised by him to obtain a better teacher. He found no difficulty in getting one, who spoke French really well, to talk with him three or four hours a day on condition of being supplied with tobacco during that time; and as tobacco was very cheap, and could be always bought from the soldiers, Julian's store of money was not much diminished by the outlay.

He himself had now regularly taken to smoking; not at first because he liked it, but because he saw how much it cheered and comforted his comrades, who, however, generally used it in the sailor fashion of chewing. Escape was never talked of. The watch kept was extremely strict, and as on getting outside of the walls of the courtyard, they would but find themselves in a town girt in by walls and fortifications, the risk was altogether too great to be encountered. It had been attempted many times, but in the great majority of cases the fugitives had been shot, and their bodies had always been brought back to the prison in order to impress the others with the uselessness of the attempt. A very few, indeed, had got away; at least, it was supposed that they had done so, as their bodies had not been brought back; but it was generally considered that the chances were enormously against their being able to make their way over the wide extent of country between Verdun and the sea, and then to succeed in obtaining a passage to some neutral port, from which they could make their way to England. Several times offers of freedom were made to such of the prisoners as volunteered to enter the French army or navy, but very few availed themselves of them.

At the end of ten months, Julian was able to speak French fluently. Large bodies of troops were continually marching through the town bound for the east, and the prisoners learned from the guards that the general belief was that Napoleon intended to invade Russia.

"I have a good mind to enlist," Julian said one day, to his friend the mate. "Of course, nothing would persuade me to do so if it were a question of fighting against the English. But now that I have learnt French fairly, I begin to find this life horrible, and am longing intensely to be doing something. There are the reasons that I have already told you of why, even if I were free, I could not go home. I might as well be taking part in this campaign as staying in prison. Besides, I should have infinitely better chances of escape as a soldier than we have here, and if I find I don't like it, I can at least try to get off."

"Well, placed as you are, Wyatt, I don't know that I should not be inclined to do the same. At any rate, you would be seeing something of life, instead of living like a caged monkey here. Of course, as you say, no one would dream of such a thing if one would have to go to Spain to fight our fellows there. Still, if by any chance, after this Russian business, your regiment was ordered back to France, and then to Spain, you would at any rate have a fair chance of escaping on such a journey. I would not do it myself, because I have a wife at home. One hopes, slight as the chance seems to be, that some day there will be a general exchange of prisoners. But as you can't go home, I don't know but that it would be a good plan for you to do what you propose. At any rate, your life as a soldier would be a thousand times better than this dog's existence."

"I could put up with that for myself, but it is awful seeing many of the men walking about with their heads down, never speaking for hours, and the pictures of hopeless melancholy. See how they die off, not from hunger or fever, for we have enough to eat, but wasting away and dying from home-sickness, and because they have nothing to live for. Why, of the forty-five of us who came up together, ten have gone already; and there are three or four others who won't last long. It is downright heartbreaking; and now that I have no longer anything to keep my thoughts employed a good part of the day, I begin to feel it myself. I catch myself saying, what is the use of it all, it would be better make a bolt and have done with it. I can quite understand the feelings of that man who was shot last week. He ran straight out of the gate; he had no thought of escape; he simply did it to be shot down by the sentries, instead of cutting his own throat. I don't believe I could stand it much longer, Jim; and even if I were certain of being killed by a Russian ball I think I should go."

"Go then, lad," the man said. "I have always thought that you have borne up very well; but I know it is even worse for you than it is for us sailors. We are accustomed to be cooped up for six months at a time on board a ship, without any news from outside; with nothing to do save to see that the decks are washed, and the brasses polished, except when there is a shift of wind or a gale. But to anyone like yourself, I can understand that it must be terrible; and if you feel getting into that state, I should say go by all means."

"I will give you a letter before I enlist, Jim; and I will get you, when you are exchanged, to go down with it yourself to Weymouth, and tell them what became of me, and why I went into the French army. Don't let them think that I turned traitor. I would shoot myself rather than run the risk of having to fight Englishmen. But when it is a choice between fighting Russians and going out of my mind, I prefer shouldering a French musket. I will write the letter to-day. There is no saying when they may next call for volunteers; for, as you know, those who step forward are taken away at once, so as to prevent their being persuaded by the others into drawing back."

The next day Julian wrote his letter. He recapitulated the arguments he had used to the mate, and bade Frank and his aunt a final farewell. "I may, of course, get through the campaign," he said. "The French soldiers here seem to think that they will sweep the Russians before them, but that is their way. They talked of sweeping us out of the Peninsula, and they haven't done it yet; and there is no doubt that the Russians are good soldiers, and will make a big fight of it. I hope you won't feel cut up about this, and really I care little whether I leave my bones in Russia or not. It may be twenty years or even longer before that fellow Markham's letter arrives to clear me. And until then I cannot return to England, or at any rate to Weymouth; indeed, wherever I was, I should live with the knowledge that I might at any moment be recognized and arrested. Therefore while others here have some hope of a return home, either by an exchange of prisoners or by the war coming to an end, I have nothing to look forward to. So you see, old fellow, that it is as well as it is.

"I have to earn my own living somehow, and this way will suit me better than most. Only, of one thing be sure, that if at the end of the Russian war I return alive, and my regiment is sent where there is a chance of fighting our people, I shall take an opportunity of deserting. As I have told you, I can speak French fairly well now, and after a few months in a French regiment I shall be able to pass as a native, and should have a good chance of making my way somehow through the country to the frontier. My idea at present is that I should make for Genoa and ship there as a sailor on board an Italian vessel, or, better still, if we happen to be masters of the place, or our fleet near, should either enlist in one of our regiments, or ship on board one of our men-of-war. I should, of course, take another name, and merely say that I had been captured by the French at sea, had been a prisoner at Verdun, and had managed to get free, and make my way across the country. Probably in any case I shall do this when the regiment returns from Russia. Two or three years' absence, and a fair share of the hardships of a soldier's life, and a disguise, might enable me without detection to travel down to Weymouth and see Aunt, and learn if there had been any news from Markham.

"Whether I shall find you there or not I can't tell. I have but little hope that you will be able to get a commission. This affair of mine will be, I fear, an absolute bar to that. But, wherever you may be, I shall do my best to find you out, after I have seen Aunt. This will be given you by a good fellow named Jim Thompson. He has been a first mate, and has been a good friend to me ever since I have been over here. If he is exchanged, he will bring it to you; if not, he will give it to one of the men who is exchanged to post it on his arrival in England. I shall direct it both to you and Aunt, so that if you are away from Weymouth she will open it. God bless you both."

Three days later a notice was posted in the prison saying that any of the prisoners who chose to volunteer for service in Germany were at liberty to do so. They would not be called upon at any future time for service against British troops, but would have the liberty to exchange into regiments destined for other service. Eight men, including Julian, came forward, when, an hour later, a French officer entered and called for volunteers. Julian had already announced his intention of doing so to his comrades in the hut, and to his other acquaintances.

"You see," he said, "we shall not be called upon for service against the English, and I would rather fight the Russians than stay in this place for years."

Hitherto the men who had volunteered had been hooted by their fellow-prisoners as they went out, but the promise that they should not be called upon for service against British troops made a great difference in the feeling with which the offer was regarded, and had it not been for the hope that everyone felt that he should ere long be exchanged, the number who stepped forward would have been greatly increased. A strong French division had marched into Verdun that morning, and the new volunteers were all divided among different corps. Julian, who now stood over six feet, was told off to a Grenadier regiment. A uniform was at once given to him from those carried with the baggage of the regiment, and the sergeant of the company in which he had been placed took him to its barrack-room.

"Comrades," he said, "here is a new recruit. He is an Englishman who has the good sense to prefer fighting the Russians to rotting in prison. He is a brave fellow, and speaks our language well, and I think you will find him a good comrade. He has handed over twenty francs to pay his footing in the company. You must not regard him as a traitor to his country, my friends, for he has received from the colonel a paper authorizing him to exchange into a regiment destined for other service, in case, after we have done with the Russians, we should be sent