Year: 1874




The military prison at Finchley was very
much like the rest, | suppose. Larcom
was one of lot of twenty or thirty who
had come in together more than year be-
fore. He was big, communicating tel
low, not very clever, and pretty rough.
Brown was from the same neighborhood,
and he and Larcom were mates all through.
He was sharp little fellow, this Brown,
quick-tempered and wiry. and might have
been anywhere between twenty-five and
forty. He would have been free or dead
long before that. but for sticking by his
hulking comrade,-Larcom, rather an
chored him. Luce was a sergeant in the
twenty-third, when taken; but he was not
a boy now, and he looked as though a lit
tie more of the same sort would make him
neither boy nor man.


Larcom had been married to German
woman short time before his second en-
listment. and just before their capture he
had received news of the birth of a child.
Everybody knew about his Katy and the
boy, and by this time there was not much
left ofthe letter that had brought the news.
He liked to talk about them, and the men
liked to hear him in that dismal place
laughed at him, and poked weak fun at
him. He had plenty of leisure to think
about his wife and child, and he thought
and talked SO constantly OF them that he
gradually built upa kind of romance about
both; but principally about the child, per-
haps from there being less troublesome
groundwork of fact to clear away and ac-
commodate. He knew no more about it
than his audience, but he came to more
than half believe in the description and
history he gave of the little one he had
never seen. The fellows made standing
joke of asking after the baby's health, his
weight, and the number of his teeth, and
absorbing interest and sympathy were
manifested in critical periods of measles
and whoopingcough.


The fun was weak, no doubt, and not
too fine-drawn. This was in the first
months oftheir imprisonment. By and by
they ceased to quiz Larcom, partly because
he took it less kindly, and partly because
they came to have small stomach for
pleasantly themselves. There was only
one thing that made the life tolerable at
all, and that was the hope of escape. And
they never ceased to plot and plan for that.
Some got away, by dextrous and instant
use of fortunate chance, by desperate de-
fiance of risk and reason, by stratagem de-
vised and worked out with incredible
means and success. But most of the plots
were discovered at Finchley, by the cum
ming of one of the guards. He was a low,
brutal fellow, with retreating chin and
forehead, and peculiar leer for his ordi-
nary expression. This fellow had habit
of swapping his jaws convulsively when he
laughed, and from that and his ferret
keenness of scent and success in unearth-
ing tunneling plots and the like, he had
got the nickname of ''Steel-trap," and was
known by no other. The hatred of the
prisoners for this man was simply murder
Gus, and the best of the guards themselves
despised him. His ingenuity in thwarting
attempts at escape was beyond belief, and
his enjoyment of success quite inhuman
During the progress of the great tunnelof
July, which was dug with infinite patience
and skill and with the most elaborate eau
ton and secrecy. he was watched by a
regular system ofespionage, and when the
men lay down on the night of the twen
tieth of July to wait with fear and trem
bling for the signal, not man ofthem be-
lieved Trap had any suspicion, and twen-
ty-one men passed through that hundred
feet of burrow that night. The twenty
second was Baker, who had sworn he
would never come back alive. He thought
he heard some strange noise when White
law went out just ahead of him, and when
he emerged and saw the hated leering
face and more armed men behind, he
leaped on the guard with terrible curse.
and the next minute lay dying on the
grass. The rest were all taken quietly as
they came out, and passed back in at the
gates, with what bitterness may be i'm
agined.


Larcom ceased altogether to talk of the
child and its mother after while, and got
to be very quiet indeed, and towards the
end of the year he brooded good deal
On Thursday morning very early, those
lying near him who were awake heard
him swearing to himself Then he turned
over to Brown, who lay next him, and
said -


"Browny, l want to see her and the lit
tie chap"


Then he turned away his f;tce and lay
there long while quite still. That after
noon, as Satan would have it, Luce,
Brown, and Larcom were detailed upon
parole to bring water from a spring out
side the walls. Wells were low from the
long drought. They had a barrel upon
hand-cart, and pail apiece, and went in
and out several times. The spring was
out of the gates, about a quarter of Il mile
to the west. 1t ran out of trough at the
roadside in bend of the fence and be-
hind clump of bushes. They were
neither of them too strong, and water is
not so light as some things. 1t was nearly
sunset when they came to the spring the
last time. Larcom filled his pail and then
stood up and poured it on the ground.


Boys" he said, II amt going to carry
any more The quiet words fired Brown
like match to powder. He sprang up
and flung away the pail he was filling.


"Come on" he cried fiercely, "rm-
if I'll 90 back to that hell !"


Luce sat on the edge of the cart, and
looked at his toes working in and out of
his shoes. Like enough he did not see
either just then talking of home made u
baby OF him.


'Are you coming, Luce ?" Larcom
asked. And Luce looked up and
answered.


No"


That's right, Luce" Larcom said: Il
am Olad Won amt But | can't stand it