Читать книгу Prisoners of War in Britain 1756 to 1815. A record of their lives, their romance and their sufferings онлайн

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Attempted escapes were frequent. Although under constant fear of the lash, which was mercilessly used in the British army at this time, the soldiers of the guard were ready enough to sell to the prisoners provisions, maps, and instruments for effecting escape. One day in 1807 five of the prisoners attempted to get off in the empty water casks which the Chatham contractor took off to fill up. They got safely enough into the water boat, unknown of course to its occupants (so it seems, at any rate, in this case, although there was hardly a man who had dealings with the hulks who would not help the prisoners to escape for money), but at nightfall the boat anchored in mid-stream; one of the prisoners got stuck in his water-cask and called for aid; this was heard by the cabin-boy, who gave the alarm, the result being that the prisoners were hauled out of their hiding places, taken on board, and got ten days Black Hole. The Black Hole was a prison six feet square at the bottom of the hold, to which air only came through round holes not big enough for the passage of a mouse. Once and once only in the twenty-four hours was this cachot visited for the purpose of bringing food and taking away the latrine box. Small wonder that men often went mad and sometimes died during a lengthened confinement, and that those who came out looked like corpses.