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CloseConfinement

Page history last edited by PBworks 16 years, 11 months ago

CLOSE CONFINEMENT AND ESCAPE

HENRY BROWNE MASON: YATELEY'S HORNBLOWER

 

The good life on parole in Verdun continued for Henry and his friend Drew for almost ten months. Suddenly, in July 1810 they found themselves under close confinement in the Convent of St Vannes in the Citadel of Verdun. Two midshipmen named Herbert and Hurd had broken their parole and tried to escape. Forty midshipmen and twenty masters of merchantmen were rounded up into close confinement.

 

By degrees they won a few indulgences, such as being able to hold a Sunday service, and instruction in French, navigation and fencing. On 21st October they celebrated the anniversary of the Battle of Trafalgar with a good dinner, much to the annoyance of their captors.

 

With no prospect of being released on parole, Henry and three friends decided to attempt to escape. After two failures, they managed to procure a rope with the help of friends from the town who were allowed to visit them occassionally. At 7pm on the 9th November Henry, Drew and one friend escaped the convent, crept along the ramparts, and lowered themselves 60 feet into the dry ditch. Having climbed over a collapsed part of the town wall they made their rendezvouz with their prearranged guide. Their guide, a local farmer from Dungie, hid the three escapees in his hay barn for three days, where they were joined by two other midshipmen who had broken parole. To escape from close confinement was considered honourable, but for a gentleman to escape by breaking parole was not, and would be subject of letters to the Times. The five fugitives watched a search party through holes on the barn wall.

 

Disguising them as French peasants, their guide marched them all night. Next day they passed through the garrison town of Bouillon. Marching on across muddy fields they eventually reached the village of Au, 30 miles from Liege, almost exhausted. They covered about 100 miles in 27½ hours -- quite a feat of endurance. They had little confidence in their new guide from Au since he kept stopping to drink and eat. However at Liege they we handed over to a third guide, Renard, a sixty year old with gout, who was to take them on to Rotterdam. During the first night at Renard's house, Henry was taken ill with severe pains in his body. Leaving Liege they marched one day then procured a cart, reaching an inn in the village of Helcheteren the following afternoon. Having set off again in a cart driven by the landlady's brother, they passed Hechtel, the headquarters of the gendamerie, without difficulty. However Henry was now so ill he decided to stay at a secure cottage by the roadside, until the cart could take him back to the inn at Helcheteren on its return journey. After some anxious hours, the carter did return, and thanks to the care of the innkeeping family he made a complete recovery. Renard too came back for him on 4th December, havingbeen delayed himself by illness.

 

On 14th December, one month after he had left the farmhouse near Verdun, he arrived in Rotterdam, sorry to bid goodbye to the honest Renard, who asked for no more money than Henry could spare and still be able to pay the £40 passage to be smuggled to England aboard a potato boat from the Hague.

 

The schuyt laden with potatoes ran aground off Margate in a snowstorm, but refloated, and reached Gravesend on 1st January 1811. By now Henry had no money left and had to borrow a sovereign for his coach fare to London from an escaping army officer on the same boat. He reached his brother Finch's lodgings in London. "Here I got a warm bath, my hair cut, and, with some of Finch's clothes, made to look the gentleman."

 

His mother, who had moved to Marlow with some of her children, was overjoyed. Henry had been given up for dead when Drew had told her he had left Henry extremely ill on the route to Rotterdam. Henry had been captured in the Adriatic by the French in March 1809 and, having escaped, arrived back in London in January 1811. During that time, it appears from his narrative, he had traversed on foot all of France, and much of Italy and the Low Countries. He was not yet 20 years old. Having returned to London he was given three days leave with his mother before reporting to the Admiralty.

 

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