Papillon

Curaçao

Gulls. First their cries, because it was still dark, and then the birds themselves, wheeling above the boat. One settled on the mast, lifted off, then settled again. All this flying around lasted three hours and more until the dawn came up, with a brilliant sun. Nothing on the horizon showed any hint of land. Where the hell did all these gulls and sea-birds come from? Our eyes searched throughout the day, and searched in vain. Not the least sign of land anywhere near. The full moon rose just as the sun was setting; and this tropical moon was so strong that its glare hurt my eyes. I no longer had my dark glasses – they had gone with that diabolical old wave, as well as all our caps. At about eight o’clock, very far away in this lunar daylight, we saw a dark line on the horizon.

‘That’s land all right,’ said I, the first of us all to say it.

‘Yes, so it is.’

In short, everybody agreed that they could see a dark line that must be land of some sort. All through the rest of the night I kept my bows pointed towards this shadow, which grew clearer and clearer. We were getting there. No clouds, a strong wind and tall but regular waves, and we were running in as fast as we could go. The dark mass did not rise high over the water, and there was no way of telling whether the coast was cliffs, rocks or beach. The moon was setting on the far side of the land, and it cast a shadow that prevented me from seeing anything except a line of lights at sea-level, continuous at first and then broken. I came closer and closer, and then, about half a mile from the shore, I dropped anchor. The wind was strong, the boat swung round and faced the waves, which it took head-on every time. It tossed us around a great deal and indeed it was very uncomfortable. The sails were lowered and furled, of course. We might have waited until daylight in this unpleasant but safe position, but unhappily the anchor suddenly lost its hold. To steer a boat, it has to be moving: otherwise the rudder has no bite. We hoisted the jib and stay-sail, but then a strange thing happened – the anchor would not get a grip again. The others hauled the rope aboard: it came in without any anchor. We had lost it. In spite of everything I could do the waves kept heaving us in towards the rocks of this land in such a dangerous way that I decided to hoist the mainsail and run in on purpose – run in fast. This I carried out so successfully that there we were, wedged between two rocks, with the boat absolutely shattered. No one bawled out in panic, but when the next wave came rolling in we all plunged into it and ended up on shore, battered, tumbled, soaked, but alive. Only Clousiot, with his plastered leg, had a worse time than the rest of us. His arm, face and hands were badly scraped. We others had a few bangs on the knees, hands and ankles. My ear had come up against a rock a little too hard, and it was dripping with blood.

Still, there we were, alive on dry land, out of the reach of the waves. When day broke we picked up the oilskin and I turned the boat over – it was beginning to go to pieces. I managed to wrench the compass from its place in the stern-sheets. There was no one where we had been cast up, nor anywhere around. We looked at the line of lights, and later we learned that they were there to warn fishermen that the place was dangerous. We walked away, going inland; and we saw nothing, only cactuses, huge cactuses, and donkeys. We reached a well, tired out, for we had had to carry Clousiot, taking turns with two of us making a kind of chair with joined hands. Round the well there were the dried carcasses of goats and asses. The well was empty, and the windmill that had once worked it was now turning idly, bringing nothing up. Not a soul; only these goats and donkeys.

We went on to a little house whose open doors invited us to walk in. We called out ‘Haloo! Haloo!’ Nobody. On the chimney-piece a canvas bag with its neck tied by a string; I took it and opened it. As I opened it the string broke – it was full of florins, the Dutch currency. So we were on Dutch territory: Bonaire, Curaçao or Aruba. We put the bag back without touching anything; we found water and each drank in turn out of a ladle. No one in the house, no one anywhere near. We left, and we were going along very slowly, because of Clousiot, when an old Ford blocked our path.

‘Are you Frenchmen?’

‘Yes, Monsieur.’

‘Get into the car, will you?’ Three got in behind and we settled Clousiot on their knees; I sat next to the driver and Maturette next to me.

‘You’ve been wrecked?’

‘Yes.’

‘Anyone drowned?’

‘No.’

‘Where do you come from?’

‘Trinidad.’

‘And before that?’

‘French Guiana.’

‘Convicts or relégués?’

‘Convicts.’

‘I’m Dr. Naal, the owner of this property; it’s a peninsula running out from Curaçao. They call it Ass’s Island. Goats and asses live here, feeding on the cactuses, in spite of the long thorns. The common nickname for those thorns is the young ladies of Curaçao.’

I said, ‘That’s not very flattering for the real young ladies of Curaçao.’ The big, heavy man laughed noisily. With an asthmatic gasp the worn-out Ford stopped of its own accord. I pointed to a herd of asses and said, ‘If the car can’t manage it any more, we can easily have ourselves pulled.’

‘I’ve got a sort of harness in the boot, but the great difficulty is to catch a couple and then put the harness on.’ The fat fellow opened the bonnet and found that a particularly heavy lurch had disconnected a plug. Before getting in he gazed all round, looking uneasy. We set off again, and having bumped along rough tracks we came to a white barrier across the road. Here there was a little white cottage. He spoke in Dutch to a very light-coloured, neatly-dressed Negro who kept saying, ‘Ya, master; ya, master.’ Then he said, ‘I’ve given this man orders to stay with you until I come back and give you something to drink if you’re thirsty. Will you get out?’ We got out and sat on the grass in the shade. The aged Ford went gasping away. It had scarcely gone fifty yards before the black, speaking papiamento – a Dutch West Indies patois made up of English, Dutch, French and Spanish words – told us that his boss, Dr. Naal, had gone to fetch the police, because he was very frightened of us: he had told him to look out for himself, we being escaped thieves. And the poor devil of a mulatto couldn’t do enough to try to please us. He made us some coffee: it was very weak, but in that heat it did us good. We waited for more than an hour and then there appeared a big van after the nature of a black maria with six policemen dressed in the German style, and an open car with a uniformed chauffeur and three gentlemen behind, one of them being Dr. Naal.

They got out, and the smallest, who looked like a new-shaven priest, said to us, ‘I am the superintendent in charge of security for the island of Curaçao. My position obliges me to place you under arrest. Have you committed any crimes since your arrival upon the island and if so what? And which of you?’

‘Monsieur, we are escaped prisoners. We have come from Trinidad, and only a few hours ago we wrecked our boat on your rocks. I am the leader of this little band and I can assure you not one of us has committed the slightest crime.’

The superintendent turned towards Dr. Naal and spoke to him in Dutch. They were both talking when a fellow hurried up on a bicycle. He talked loud and fast, as much to Dr. Naal as to the policeman.

‘Monsieur Naal,’ I said, ‘why did you tell this man we were thieves?’

‘Because before I met you this fellow told me he watched you from behind a cactus and he had seen you go into his house and then come out of it again. He’s an employee of mine – he looks after some of my asses.’

‘And just because we went into the house does that mean we’re thieves? What you say doesn’t make sense, Monsieur: all we did was to take some water – you don’t call that theft, do you?’

‘And what about the bag of florins?’

‘Yes, I did open that bag; and in fact I broke the string as I did so. But I most certainly didn’t do anything but look to see what kind of money it had in it, and so to find out what country we had reached. I scrupulously put the money and the bag back where they were, on the chimney-piece.’

The policeman looked me right in the eye, and then turning he spoke to the character on the bicycle very severely. Dr. Naal made as though to speak. Harshly, in the German style, the superintendent cut him short. Then he made the newcomer get into the open car next to the chauffeur, got in himself with two policemen and drove off. Naal and the other man who had come with him walked into the house with us.

‘I must explain,’ he said. ‘That man had told me the bag had vanished. Before having you searched, the superintendent questioned him, because he thought he was lying. If you’re innocent, I’m very sorry about the whole thing; but it wasn’t my fault.’

Less than a quarter of an hour later the car came back and the superintendent said to me, ‘You told the truth: that man was a disgusting liar. He will be punished for having tried to damage you like this.’ Meanwhile the fellow was being loaded aboard the black maria: the five others got in too and I was about to follow when the superintendent held me back and said, ‘Get into my car next to the driver.’ We set out ahead of the van and very quickly we lost sight of it. We took proper macadamed roads and then came to the town with its Dutch-looking houses. Everything was very clean, and most of the people were on bicycles – there were hundreds of them coming and going in every direction. We reached the police-station. We went through a big office with a good many policemen in it, all dressed in white and each at his own desk, and we came to an inner room. It had air-conditioning, and it was cool. A big fat fair-haired man of about forty was sitting there in an armchair. He got up and spoke in Dutch. When their first remarks were over the superintendent, speaking French, said, ‘This is the chief of police of Curaçao. Chief, this Frenchman is the leader of the band of six we’ve just picked up.’

‘Very good, Superintendent. As shipwrecked men, you are welcome to Curaçao. What’s your name?’

‘Henri.’

‘Well, Henri, you have had a very unpleasant time with this business of the bag of money, but from your point of view it’s all for the best, because it certainly proves you are an honest man. I’ll give you a sunny room with a bunk in it so you can get some rest. Your case will be put before the governor and he will take appropriate measures. The superintendent and I will speak in your favour.’ He shook hands and we left. In the courtyard Dr. Naal apologized and promised to use his influence on our behalf. Two hours later we were all shut up in a very large kind of ward with a dozen beds in it and a long table and benches down the middle. Through the open window we asked a policeman to buy us tobacco, cigarette-paper and matches, with Trinidad dollars. He did not take the money and we didn’t understand his reply.

‘That coal-black character seems too devoted to his duty by half,’ said Clousiot. ‘We still haven’t got that tobacco.’

I was just about to knock on the door when it opened. A little man looking something like a coolie and wearing prison uniform with a number on the chest so that there should be no mistake, said, ‘Money, cigarettes.’ ‘No. Tobacco, matches and paper.’ A few minutes later he came back with all these things and with a big steaming pot – chocolate or cocoa. He brought bowls too, and we each of us drank one full.

I was sent for in the afternoon, and I went to the chief of police’s office again. ‘The governor has given me orders to let you walk about in the prison courtyard. Tell your companions not to try to escape, for that would lead to very serious consequences for all of you. Since you are the leader, you may go into the town for two hours every morning, from ten until twelve, and then in the afternoon from three until five. Have you any money?’

‘Yes. English and French.’

‘A plain-clothes policeman will go with you wherever you choose during your outings.’

‘What are they going to do to us?’

‘I think we’ll try to get you aboard tankers one by one – tankers of different nationalities. Curaçao has one of the biggest oil refineries in the world: it treats oil from Venezuela, and so there are twenty or twenty-five tankers from all countries coming and going every day. That would be the ideal solution for you, because then you would reach the other countries without any sort of difficulty.’

‘What countries, for example? Panama, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Mexico, Canada, Cuba, the United States or the countries which have English laws?’

‘Impossible. Europe’s just as impossible too. Don’t you worry: just you rely on us and let us do our best to help you make a new start in life.’

‘Thank you, Chief.’

I repeated all this very exactly to my companions. Clousiot, the sharpest crook of us all, said, ‘What do you think of it, Papillon?’

‘I don’t know yet. I’m afraid it may be a piece of soap so we’ll keep quiet and not escape.’

‘I’m afraid you may be right,’ he said.

The Breton believed in this wonderful scheme. The flat-iron guy was delighted: he said, ‘No more boats, no more adventures, and that’s for sure. We each of us land up in some country or other aboard a big tanker and then we fade right away.’ Leblond was of the same opinion.

‘What about you, Maturette?’

And this kid of nineteen, this little wet-leg who had accidentally been turned into a convict, this boy with features finer than a girl, raised his gentle voice and said, ‘And do you people really think these square-headed cops are going to produce bent papers for each one of us? Or even actually forge them? I don’t. At the most they might close their eyes if we went off one by one, and illegally got aboard a tanker on its way out: but nothing more. And even then they’d only do so to get rid of us without a headache. That’s what I think. I don’t believe a word of it.’

I went out very little: just now and then in the mornings, to buy things. We had been here a week now, and nothing had happened. We were beginning to feel anxious. One evening we saw three priests accompanied by policemen going round the cells and wards. They stopped for a long while in the cell nearest to us, where a Negro accused of rape was shut up. We thought they might come to see us, so we went back into the ward and sat there, each on his bed. And indeed all three of them did come in, together with Dr. Naal, the chief of police and someone in a white uniform I took to be a naval officer.

‘Monseigneur, here are the Frenchmen,’ said the chief of police in French. ‘Their behaviour has been excellent.’

‘I congratulate you, my sons. Let us sit down on the benches round this table; we shall be able to talk better like that.’ Everyone sat down, including the people who were with the bishop. They brought a stool that stood by the door in the courtyard and put it at the head of the table. That way the bishop could see everybody. ‘Nearly all Frenchmen are Catholics: is there any one among you who is not?’ Nobody put up his hand. It seemed to me that I too ought to look upon myself as a Catholic. ‘My friends, I descend from a French family. My name is Irénée de Bruyne. My people were Huguenots, Protestants who fled to Holland at the time Catherine de Medicis was hunting them down. So I am a Frenchman by blood. I am the bishop of Curaçao, a town where there are more Protestants than Catholics, but where the Catholics are very zealous and attentive to their duties. What is your position?’

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