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.

Once this barrier was finished they would no longer be permitted to approach the enclosure and drag in, between the barbed wire, the dead branches which the kindly fir-trees shed each day. And the winter was here, each hour grew colder; the future might well look gloomy to those poor devils, who were clothed in a ragged shirt with trousers and coat in pitiable condition, reduced to finding in a litre of hot water, drunk twice a day, the amount of heat necessary, according to the German staff, to keep their emaciated bodies in health.

Everywhere consternation reigned, and despair. It was in vain for their kind and more clever comrades to talk about the fun they would have in playing tricks on the Boches. Nothing was more easy, said they, than to throw a simple bit of barbed wire, which would hook on to the electrified fence, and by its contact with the earth establish a short circuit. In vain our orators talked about the trouble that that would cause the Germans, the exploded leads, the painful searching

all along the line, the momentary interruption of the current and the expense that would follow. One optimist held forth that he saw in this development an excellent sign, an indication of undeniable weakness in the German Army. Its losses had been such that already they were short of men. The electric installation would permit them to spare 50 per cent. of the sentinels. Moreover, the information lately received backed up his theory. Had not one of the sentinels just told them that he was going off that evening for the Russian front? Perhaps also they feared the rising of the French prisoners, when they heard the thundering of their friends—the 75’s—in the far distance. And these times were near! In any case they must conclude from it that our arms were successful and “Gaudeamus igitur.” But these speeches were of no use. With all their subtleties what could they do against the brutality of visible realities and palpable facts? They were going to be encircled. So one of us regretted the beauty of the forest, another his liberty that vanished just when he hoped to regain it, a third the comforting fire which was to take the place of a meal and warm clothes.

To the last speaker a wag replied: “But, my dear fellow, you won’t be cold. It is to warm us that the Boches have installed this apparatus. They are blockaded by the Allied fleets and have no coal. Electricity, you know, can be produced by waterfalls; that will cost the Boches nothing. You see! Throughout the camp there will be warmth. The days will come when we shall be too hot, you will be obliged to leave off your overcoat. Then just see how practical these Boches are! They place at a certain distance from these electrified wires a kind of barrier. It is the drying ground. On these lines we shall hang our linen. They say that electric heat kills the eggs of parasites. You see how fine it will be. In the morning you can also toast your K. bread or your herring by holding it at the end of a stick. Just consider a little how great are the advantages of the installation. This fence that they are making round the camp may be called an ‘Outside Central Heating Apparatus.’”

It was indeed all very fine, but the simple doubted, and, in any case, preferred the flames which scorched their bodies and in which they saw pictures of home.

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Exclamations were heard. We distinguished the words “Los,” “Weg,” and “Arbeiten.” We saw the imperious gestures, and the workmen having picked up spades and pickaxes, went slowly towards the marked-out holes. The tools were lifted painfully, with a fine sweep of the arm. They struck the earth without energy. But numbers prevailed in spite of goodwill, and the nothing done by each nevertheless came to something by the end of the day.

The next day and during many days the men laboured. The holes were deep and the posts solid enough to resist anything.

But here we must do justice to our fellows; they attacked their task with a most praiseworthy moderation. One might have thought that, like the Trappist’s fathers, the prisoners were digging their own graves, for their ardour was such as would have made a road-maker of Paris turn pale with scorn.

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.

It was only the next morning, when the foreman of the work arrived, that the deed was discovered.

There was a fearful row. The fires were immediately put out by order and the ashes scattered to the four winds. For several days a strict guard prevented attempts to relight them. But soon the watch became relaxed, and the sentinels, tired of pursuing abortive fires, ceased to go their rounds. It was not long before the natural result followed and the sparks of the first new fire were flying upwards. The logs were dug up as they were wanted and gave our comrades pleasant warmth and a feeling of well-being, of which for some time they had been deprived. They were once again able to make hot drinks. The joy they felt in having “done” their jailers added to the pleasure they felt in being able to warm themselves.

When the sentinels were questioned on the subject they confessed to having seen everything, but having noticed the apparent regularity and good order of the men, they had not been suspicious, and confined themselves to admiring the sense of economy which imbued all the enterprises of their Kolossal administration. In their inmost hearts they had doubtless chanted “Te Deum Laudamus” to the glory of their omnipotent Kaiser, who knows and foresees everything.

This act of indiscipline on the part of the French was incomprehensible to the German mind. They could not imagine another reasoning otherwise than they did: “One must never do anything without an order, and if one does something, then it must be because one has received an order; moreover, the order can only come from a superior, who in every case is right.” Therefore, if some one does something, it is well. But they are too dull to realise that German logic is not universal logic and far less French logic.

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Once again our soldier-prisoners had gained a victory over their thick-skinned guardians.

And that is how the encircling heating apparatus became central heating!