A man after Dr Maturin's heart
Another extraordinary little story from Mrs Elton's Locks Bolts and Bars: Stories of Prisoners in the French Wars 1759 - 1814, which inevitably made me think of a certain Dr Maturin. The tale is told by one Midshipman Robert Bastard James of the brig Rambler. James was just 16 years old when he was captured in a prize in 1804 but he proved to be a principaled and resilient captive and an equally persistent escaper. After spending three years as a POW at Verdun, James attempted to escape with one Dr William Porteus, a Naval assistant surgeon. The pair got as far as Ulm on the Danube where they were recaptured and marched in chains back to the penal depot of Bitche. The following incident occurring en route.
When the two prisoners alighted in the evening from the cart, they found to their astonishment that their prison was under the Parish Church, in a vault. They hesitated, but were thrust forward by the gaoler and left to grope to a corner, where, instead of a bed of straw, they stumbled on a heap of human bones.
"We thought that it smelt deadly, but now it really felt so:-sailors of all persons in the world are most superstitious:-and if we had a horrible feeling on us at the moment, let any of our readers think themselves in our situation - then judge."
"It was fortunate for me I had a doctor for my companion,-or I should not have slept a wink for the night;-it seemed to him a mine of wealth:-for during the long hours, I was obliged to listen to all the theory and pracice of anatomy:-so that, by the morning, I was acquainted and quite familiar with the craniums and paraphernalia of our ghostly friends:-and only the impression that my own ribs and trucks would soon be like them."
Mrs Elton notes that this account preserves James' spelling and "picturesque punctuation"!
The irrepressible Dr Porteus later escaped successfully from Bitche and got away via Trieste in 1808. Not so James, who spent the remainder of the war as a prisoner at Bitche, Sarrelibre and Verdun. However Mrs Elton notes that James "spent happier days towards the end of his captivity and finally reached England with his wife and new born babe in 1814." In Napoleon and His British Captives Michael Lewis gives a rather less romantic account of James' marriage.
In front of James lay two separate spells at Bitche and one at Sarrelibre: and, before he had completed them, he had sought happiness in quite another direction. He had married: and that was a bar to escape of a different kind altogether. Indeed, when the end came, and they had to depart in a hurry from Verdun, his wife was on the point of presenting him with his first child: and that was exceedingly awkward too.
I'll bet it was! One gets the feeling that the august Mr Lewis doesn't quite approve of young James' marriage but I for one am glad he found happiness in the unlikeliest of situations and I hope Dr Porteus' anatomy lessons stood him in good stead!
When the two prisoners alighted in the evening from the cart, they found to their astonishment that their prison was under the Parish Church, in a vault. They hesitated, but were thrust forward by the gaoler and left to grope to a corner, where, instead of a bed of straw, they stumbled on a heap of human bones.
"We thought that it smelt deadly, but now it really felt so:-sailors of all persons in the world are most superstitious:-and if we had a horrible feeling on us at the moment, let any of our readers think themselves in our situation - then judge."
"It was fortunate for me I had a doctor for my companion,-or I should not have slept a wink for the night;-it seemed to him a mine of wealth:-for during the long hours, I was obliged to listen to all the theory and pracice of anatomy:-so that, by the morning, I was acquainted and quite familiar with the craniums and paraphernalia of our ghostly friends:-and only the impression that my own ribs and trucks would soon be like them."
Mrs Elton notes that this account preserves James' spelling and "picturesque punctuation"!
The irrepressible Dr Porteus later escaped successfully from Bitche and got away via Trieste in 1808. Not so James, who spent the remainder of the war as a prisoner at Bitche, Sarrelibre and Verdun. However Mrs Elton notes that James "spent happier days towards the end of his captivity and finally reached England with his wife and new born babe in 1814." In Napoleon and His British Captives Michael Lewis gives a rather less romantic account of James' marriage.
In front of James lay two separate spells at Bitche and one at Sarrelibre: and, before he had completed them, he had sought happiness in quite another direction. He had married: and that was a bar to escape of a different kind altogether. Indeed, when the end came, and they had to depart in a hurry from Verdun, his wife was on the point of presenting him with his first child: and that was exceedingly awkward too.
I'll bet it was! One gets the feeling that the august Mr Lewis doesn't quite approve of young James' marriage but I for one am glad he found happiness in the unlikeliest of situations and I hope Dr Porteus' anatomy lessons stood him in good stead!