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Updated: June 3, 2025
As a matter of fact, they were not in such soft condition as one might have anticipated, seeing that they had been confined within the barbed-wire entanglements about Ruhleben for many months past. The keenness and energy of youth, the fact that they had many companions, had helped them to keep their muscles in tolerable order, for games had been possible and football was quite a favourite.
Well, here's the reason: our friend Henri contrived, in the first place, to attract our attention to a spot in Ruhleben where escape seemed possible I'm not going to say that he was the chief cause of our undertaking the venture, but he was one of us accompanied us to the outside of the entanglements, and led us away from the camp.
When one recalls the thousands sterling which pass through the shops and canteens during the course of the week, the German officials must have derived a handsome revenue from this iniquitous practice. If all the camps were mulcted in the manner of Ruhleben, looking after the British prisoners must be an extremely lucrative occupation. This scandalous impost hit us at every turn.
You might have expected the huge Stuart to boil over with anger after such an outburst, and, indeed, Jules's indignant reproaches were uttered with that purpose; but, as we have inferred before, this great Englishman was not only big and strong and disgustingly healthy, the envy of all in Ruhleben camp, the suspected of every German guard in the place for how could a fellow retain such proportions with such attenuated diet? but, boasting of an excellent digestion, the fellow was seldom in an ill humour.
"To think that there are people down there who have got plenty to eat, and here are we up here simply longing for it. I suppose it wouldn't do to venture down?" Henri shook his head emphatically. "Not as we are, certainly not," he declared. "For residence in Ruhleben hasn't exactly improved our appearance.
But we were all too far gone to care now; and some of us gathered together in our cold and gloomy cabin were discussing the prospects and conditions of imprisonment in Germany and attempting to console ourselves with the reflection that even internment at Ruhleben could not be worse than the captivity we had experienced on the high seas, when, at 3.30 on that Sunday afternoon, we felt a slight bump, as if the ship had touched bottom.
A few hours later they were in Paris, and at once reported at the Ministry of War. "Bravo! So you are back from Ruhleben, mes enfants. Welcome, welcome!" cried the officer who interviewed them.
It remained up for three days and apparently there was nothing doing. Such an article was evidently a drug upon the Ruhleben market. After the bird prisoner had been in the camp a while the advertisement re-appeared, but the word "not" was blotted out!
"We were eager to fight the Hun, and we have joined the French army at the first opportunity." It was the same when the officer questioned Jules, and in a trice he realized that the two had made their escape from Ruhleben together. "Tiens!" he cried; "one little moment. Two young Frenchmen who escaped from Germany and an Englishman with them mais oui! but vraiment!
Since there are now some 30,000 of military prisoners, in addition to interned civilians at Ruhleben, the number and complexity of the parcels have made it most difficult for a thorough examination to be kept up. We have done our utmost, but have been conscious that there has existed in them a channel through which have passed communications from enemy agents to enemy employers."
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