The Rupa Book Of Great Escape Stories

by Ruskin Bond

  Revolting as was the thought of wearing the clothes of the man who had fired that shot at Miller, I had become used to making up my mind quickly after all these months in a Regiment of Quick Decisions, so I rapidly stripped the dead man of his clothes and rolled the naked body into the grave with a push of my foot.

  I threw off my Legion tunic and trousers with fast-beating heart, but I had to conquer an overwhelming feeling of nausea before I could put on a single item of the Arab outfit. Even after it was on, my skin shrank from the touch of these accursed clothes, then my eyes chanced to fall on a bullet-hole high up, just at the region of the heart, and my revulsion vanished, its place taken by a pathetic pride—pride that I had avenged my friend.

  I had considerable difficulty in adjusting the turban—the blood on it was still wet—but at last I got it right and gladly threw my Legion clothes on top of the body and heaped the sand over them. When I stepped into the sunlight from behind these bushes, I was an Arab. The dead man had been about the same size as I, and the clothes fitted well enough, I dare say, although I felt anything but comfortable in them.0

  The Arab's rifle catching my eye as I went back to Miller, I at once buried the hateful thing in a little grave of its own.

  'Scottie' was unconscious when I got back to him. By his incoherent mutterings I could tell that fever was setting in to make things worse for him. In his rambling talk he cried for water, water, and I gave him every drop that was in my canteen.... Then I tried to get him to eat part of a large flat oaten cake which I had found among the Arab's belongings, but he turned his head away....Water was the only thing he wanted.

  We were too near the path to be safe from discovery, I realised, and after a careful look around to satisfy myself that no one was in sight, I hoisted Miller on to my shoulders and stumbled across the thirty yards of sand which separated us from the clump of bushes wherein I had buried the Arab. There I laid him under the thickest bush I could find and returned to the path for my rifle and Miller's canteen. There was still a little water in it.

  I sat at Miller's side that livelong day with my hand on his brow. He spoke to me once or twice at short periods of returning consciousness, but what he said will never be known by any one except myself.... A dying man's confidences, a dying man's last words—who would seek to betray so hallowed a trust? ... No one other than myself will ever know his real name, or know what it was that made so fine a man join the Legion of the Lost.

  When evening arrived, I gave him the last drop that was in the canteen and—God alone gave me the strength—hoisted him on to my shoulders and set off in search of water, the rifle held across the small of my back to ease the weight.

  Each step was unutterable agony. My knees seemed in imminent danger of breaking under the strain. My eyes were filled with scalding tears. A hundred confused sounds rang in my ears. I gasped rather than breathed.... Yet something within me bade me go on. It was God, I think, rather than Michael Donovan, who carried Miller in search of water throughout these terrible hours.

  Down I dropped on to my knees, the double weight pushing them three inches into the sand, and up again I rose, with my chest heaving as if it were about to burst.... 'Stop!' screamed my hands, when the blood started to fall from them, forced out by the grip I had taken of the rifle, a grip I could not let go. 'Stop!' screamed my legs and arms simultaneously as they cracked with the strain. 'Stop!' screamed my brain, 'this is madness!'... Yet something quiet, insistent, impelling, deep down within me whispered urgently, eagerly: 'Go on. Go on,' and I heard that whisper more clearly than all these cries of pain.

  But I could not go on indefinitely, and when, for the hundredth time, my feet caught in the sand and my knees buried themselves out of sight, I found it was beyond my strength to rise again.

  Miller had regained consciousness by now and whispered hoarsely to me to stop. He seemed to be in terrible pain, and I lowered him as gently as I could on to the sand and held him tight to me.... Miller, how I loved him! Oh! the fierce joy with which I held him in my arms in these heavenly moments. And the hellishness of the thought that he was slipping away from me. He was dying—dying.

  I had no means whereby I could help him, not a single drop of water, and after a few minutes' rest I tried to lift him to my shoulders once more. But the effort was beyond my strength, and I had much ado to refrain from dropping him heavily back to the spot from which I had partially raised him.

  I lay panting for another minute and then resolved to leave him for a little, in the hope of finding water nearby. I tottered away without daring to look back at the sand-hill on which he lay. One backward glance at that moonlit hill would kill all my resolution, I knew, and I stumbled on with great sobs shaking my whole body.

  Fortune was with me, for I came on a grape-farm before I had gone half a mile. I tore down a dozen bunches of grapes and ran back to Miller, quenching my own terrible thirst on the way. I was too late. Miller was worse, much worse, and made no attempt to swallow the grape-juice which I trickled into his mouth.... He died, he died, an hour later, in my arms.

  Tears blinded me. Sobs choked me. I wept, and wept, until I could weep no longer, and I fell asleep with Miller's hand in mine.

  The sun was setting when I awoke.

  I turned eagerly to Miller—it was time for us to resume the march—and saw only his face, the face of a dead man.

  Miller, dead? ... Then went shrieking through my mind the hellish memory of these past hours.... Miller, dead! He would speak no more. He would sing no more. He was dead.... Miller, the man who risked his life to throw a cigarette into the fort prison to me. Miller, the man who warned me about that deathtrap of an outpost. Miller, the man who had made me forget all my troubles. Miller, the man who had done me a thousand kindnesses in the few months I had known him. Miller, the man who had 'looked after the guards' when we escaped from the fort. Miller, the man who had joked about his blindness. Miller, the man with the heart of gold. Miller, the man whom I loved as a brother.... Deadl

  I buried him there, where he lay, as quickly as I could. I would go mad, I knew, if I stayed any longer at that hallowed spot. Even now, with the shadows falling quickly around me, the thoughts of what had happened were knocking impatiently at the door to my mind, demanding admittance. They would rob me of my sanity if I let them in, I told myself, as I heaped the last handful of sand on to the mound which was the body of my friend. I must flee. I must flee.

  So I stole away, with a terrible lump in my throat—alone. Alone.

  At the nearby farm I ate as many grapes as my stomach allowed, and would have been thankful indeed had the farm-owner sighted me from his hovel and ended everything there and then with a well-aimed shot. But Fortune was never more careful of my life than in these bitter days when I desired death.

  I walked in a trance throughout that night, found myself once more on the broad camel-path, and went on heedless of where it might take me. I have only a faint knowledge of my own actions during these hours of darkness and only a vague recollection of what I saw and heard, but I remember passing through two small villages. When I came near the first of these, I hid my rifle under the night-shirt affair I wore and kept it concealed there for the remainder of the night.

  The coming of daylight was as nothing to me and I continued, in a daze, my endless walk without an instant's halt. A number of Arabs passed me in a body, they shouted something to me and seemed disposed to stop and chat, but I walked on without a second look at them. I had no fear of them, I had no feelings at all, but I remember estimating that I would have the satisfaction of killing two of them before they could kill me, if it came to a fight.

  Other Arabs hailed me as the day went on, and what they thought when I did not reply is something known only to themselves. But it would not have been beneficial to their health to have attempted to stop me, for I was desperate now— reckless—and would have produced my rifle and opened fire with very little provocation.... I could drop on one knee and get my rifle into firi
ng position long before they got their rifles off their backs, I said to myself listlessly.

  The road I was on developed in the course of time into a wide automobile thoroughfare, and on the following afternoon I found myself in the town of Mascara, in the streets of which I experienced a new thrill of terror which roughly shook me out of my mental lethargy.

  I shuffled round a corner, endeavouring to pluck up sufficient courage to enter a shop and spend the money which I had got in the Arab's clothes, when I found I was within fifteen yards of a squad of legionnaires who were marching towards me.

  Craven fear rooted my feet to the roadway. I could do nothing except stand and stare at them as they came swiftly on me. An icy chill ran through my whole body. I was petrified.

  But the corporal in front, he was marching a few feet in advance of the others, rapidly brought me back to life with a kick which peeled the skin from my leg. I leapt out of the way then, my heart fluttering high in my breast with the hope that he had not discovered me to be other than an Arab, and I hobbled to the side of the road in glad consciousness of the pain in my shin. I dare not look round at them. I stood staring at the walls of a near-by house, and then the temptation got the better of me. I did look round, feeling instinctively that the corporal was at my back ready to lay his heavy hand on my shoulder, but he was out of sight round the corner and most of his men too. I almost screamed in relief when I saw the last of them turning the corner.

  I was happy—yes, happy—in the moments which followed that narrow escape, and I almost believe that I smiled to the French owner of a fruit-shop into which I went a few moments later to spend the Arab's money. I spoke not a word to him but pointed to this and then pointed to that, until I had as much fruit in my possession as the Arab's francs would permit me to buy.

  Ten minutes later I was out of Mascara and heading for Oran, ninety odd miles away.

  I had not gone more than a mile and a half when a motor- horn sounded behind me. I beckoned the driver with a wave of my hand as he drew level with me, and he at once slowed down and said something in French which I took to be an invitation to jump abroad. The car was one of these light haulage wagons, and I had no sooner pulled myself on to the back of it than it shot away at a good speed. I sat with my eyes closed, almost unable to believe my good fortune, but there was no doubt it. The miles sped by, one after the other, and the sensation of rest and relief was such that it seemed as if I were on a magic carpet, being borne to Heaven. Every mile now was a mile farther from danger.

  The car had covered a good sixty miles when the driver drew up at an intersecting road and with a jerk of the thumb bade me get off I lowered myself slowly on to the road, my hidden rifle as well as my stiff bones making the job an awkward one, and without a word the driver turned into the side road and sped off" along it as quickly as we had done on the main road.

  Late the following afternoon I was in sight of Oran.

  I cannot describe the feelings which flooded through me when I came over the crest of a long hill and saw the Mediterranean lying before me. I was in the grip of a terrible excitement and do not know how long I stood there in a trance, gazing down on the sea, the city, and its ships.

  I pulled myself together at last, felt myself shivering, and resumed my journey—the last lap. Then I stopped, after I had taken half a dozen steps. Caution held up its warning finger.

  My rifle, I must dispose of it. Oran—the port at which we had arrived on the voyage from Marseilles—was a Legion clearing-house depot, and a French army rifle would quickly attract attention. I could not carry it about under my 'nightshirt' for ever.... So I buried the rifle and cartridges in a sand-band close to the roadside and a new wave of loneliness came over me. The rifle had been my only friend since I lost Miller. And now it was gone, too. I missed the intimate whack on the knee which it had been giving me with almost every step I took.

  Oran was no mirage. Its turrets and its ships became the clearer and the bigger with every new mile, and my heart began to sing in a way it had not done for many weary months— months that seemed like years. Twilight was falling as I reached the outskirts of the city, and the little Goddess of Luck, who seemed now to have become my ally, pointed out to me a pair of Striped trousers which were lying over a bush in a back garden. They had apparently just been washed and were laid out to dry.

  I climbed over the garden wall with heart thumping sorely against my ribs-stealing a pair of trousers seemed to me a mighty crime compared with killing a dozen Arabs with a machine gun-and I adopted these pants without any ceremony. I rid myself of the Arab clothes with right goodwill and when I reclimbed the wall and continued my way into Oran I was dressed only in these trousers and my Legion shirt, socks, and boots. The shirt I turned outside in, a I might add, so that the Legion crest on the breast was hidden. From a hill Arab I had changed myself into a nondescript town Arab—with no pride, no appearance, no ambition—identical with the hundreds of Arab workmen and idlers whom I had seen at Oran, Sidi-bel-Abbes, Saida, Ainalager, and elsewhere.

  My heart leapt high when I found myself within a hundred yards of the first ship.

  I looked up at the bow, its name was French, and I swallowed a sudden bitterness and passed on to the next ship. A French name again! Tears came unbidden to my eyes and I wiped my face with the back of my hand.... It would be suicide to stow away on a French ship.... The third ship—French! The fourth, French! The fifth, French! The sixth, French!... Every ship in Oran was French!

  I sat down on a low wall, crushed under a new load of grief. To have come so far, to have suffered so much, to have Miller killed—all for nothing. The realisation of my failure bowed my shoulders as nothing else had done. The whole of me became one great sob....So this was the end.

  My teeth chattered with cold, my hands, my legs, my arms shook, as with the ague, yet I sat still on that low wall, unheeding and unheeded.... It was the end, and nothing to be done now except throw myself off the quay into the water.... How odd it was, after all these months, that I should come to follow the advice which at one time I had laughed at—the advice of the wounded legionnaire in the depot not a mile form where I was now sitting. 'Go kill yourself in water sooner than be a legionnaire,' he had said. How sensible that advice sounded to me now.

  The sharp blast of a whistle suddenly made me spring to my feet. God! How the Legion had 'got' me. Here was I springing to attention at the sound of a whistle, while the German sergeant at Ainalager was hundreds of kilometres away and the German sergeant of the fort was dead and buried hundreds of miles away. Yes, the Legion had 'got' me.

  I looked around listlessly to see whence the blast of the whistle had come, and terror seized me once more. A dozen gendarmes were passing through the illuminated dock-gates and were beginning to examine the identity cards of every one within the docks.

  Like a hunted animal I fled from them, climbed a high stone wall which separated the docks from I know not what, and dropped over the other side, uncaring whether the drop led to land or water. I fell heavily on to cobbled paving, picked myself up with bleeding hands, and knew from the first few steps I took that my left ankle had given way under me. But I pulled myself to the side of a big black shed and there lay panting in the shelter of a huge coil of rope.

  Hunger, thirst, weariness. Sorrow, pain, hopelessness They weighed me down now as never before. I lay for an hour before daring to move, and when at length I arose, there was not a single thought in my mind as to where I would go or what I would do....Suddenly, the name 'Arzeu' jumped into my mind. Where had I heard it before? What was it? Or where was it?

  Then in a flash it came to me—the map, the map I had had at Ainalager. I had seen it on the map, but where? Then I remembered. It was on the coast, a few miles east of Oran.... But what of it? What did Arzeu mean to me? Why had it come into my mind like that?

  I suddenly shivered, worse than before. The night was chilly, and my shirt and trousers gave me little protection from the sea air. I must keep in
motion, I told myself, or die of exposure.... Die of exposure! What a mad ending to the mad adventure.... I heard myself laughing, but another violent shiver through my whole body quickly put an end to it.

  On, Michael Donovan! On to your death, I told myself. On to Arzeu. Remain where you are, and you die. Move on and you die.... Heads I lose, tails you win!... Life is mad. I am mad. Every one is mad. But on, on to Arzeu. There will be water there, quite enough to drown me. And there will be ships, more of these damned French ships. Arzeu will end everything, one way or the other.... Just a few miles more.

  It took me thirty-six hours to cover these 'few miles more.' Arzeu, I discovered, was about forty-eight kilometres away (thirty miles) and it was daybreak of the second day before I reached it. I stole fruit from roadside gardens throughout the two nights and drank my fill from a horse-trough at the entrance to a big house a few kilometres out of Oran.... I had become so accustomed to pain that I was conscious of no discomfort throughout these thirty miles except the maddening heat of the sun near midday.

  There was no one awake in Arzeu to wonder why I was so early astir, and I went straight to the waterfront in the hope of seeing a British ship. But once again I had the heart-breaking experience of seeing nothing but French names painted on the bows.

  I was turning away with heart and brain on the verge of mutiny, when the word 'HILL caught my eye. I looked back, startled, fearing that my eyes had played me a trick, and once more read the names of the long line of ships. French! Every one of them!

  But no! There it was again, the word 'HILL,' on the prow of a ship anchored behind the others. My eager eyes magnified that ship twentyfold and clear as crystal, I saw the letters, MAINDY HILL. 'Maindy Hill,' I mused....English!...She must be a British ship, or an American....No matter which, I must get on board her before my eyes played me any more tricks.

  Without wasting another second, and almost afraid to look again at the ship in case my eyes had deceived me, I plunged into the water and swam as best I could in the direction where I had seen the glorious name. The ship was anchored to a red buoy and when I reached the buoy, exhausted, I hung on to a loose piece of chain and rested myself.