Papillon

Third Exercise-Book First Break

Escape from the Hospital

That evening I put it to Dega straight, and then to Fernandez. Dega told me he did not believe in the plan and that he was thinking of paying a large sum of money, if necessary, to have his internment label changed. He asked me to write to Sierra, telling him this had been suggested, and asking whether it was on the cards. Chatal carried the note that same day, and brought back the answer. ‘Don’t pay anyone anything for having your internment changed. It’s decided in France, and no one, even the governor, can touch it. If things are hopeless in the hospital, you can try to get out the day after the Mana, the boat for the islands, has left.’

We should stay a week in the cellular block before going across to the islands where it might be easier to escape than from the hospital ward we had landed up in. In the same note Sierra told me that if I liked he’d send a freed convict to talk about getting me a boat ready behind the hospital. He was a character from Toulon called Jesus: the one who prepared Dr. Bougrat’s escape two years before. To see him I should have to go and be X-rayed in the special wing. It was inside the hospital walls, but the freed men could get in on a forged pass for an X-ray examination. He told me to take out my charger before I was looked at, or the doctor might look lower than my lungs and catch sight of it. I wrote to Sierra telling him to get Jesus to the X-ray and to fix things with Chatal so that I should be sent too. That very evening Sierra let me know that it was for nine o’clock the day after next.

The next day Dega asked permission to leave hospital, and so did Fernandez. The Mana had left that morning. They hoped to escape from the cells in the camp: I wished them good luck, but as for me I did not change my plan.

I saw Jesus. He was an old time-expired convict, as dry as a smoked haddock, and his sunburnt face was scarred with two hideous wounds. One of his eyes wept all the time when he looked at you. A wrong ’un’s face: a wrong ’un’s eye. I didn’t have much confidence in him and as things turned out I was dead right. We talked fast. ‘I can get a boat ready for you: it’ll hold four – five at the outside. A barrel of water, victuals, coffee, tobacco; three paddles, empty flour sacks and a needle and thread for you to make the mainsail and jib yourself; a compass, an axe, a knife, five bottles of tafia [the local rum]. Two thousand five hundred francs the lot. It’s the dark of the moon in three days. If it’s a deal, in four days time I’ll be there in the boat on the river every night for a week from eleven till three in the morning. After the first quarter I shan’t wait any longer. The boat will be exactly opposite the lower corner of the hospital wall. Guide yourself by the wall, because until you’re right on top of the boat you won’t be able to see it, not even at two yards.’ I didn’t trust him, but even so I said yes.

‘And the cash?’ said Jesus.

‘I’ll send it you by Sierra.’ We parted without shaking hands. Not so hot.

At three o’clock Chatal went off to the camp, taking the money to Sierra: two thousand five hundred francs. I thought: ‘I can afford this bet thanks to Galgani; but it’s an outside chance, all right. I hope to God he doesn’t drink the whole bleeding lot in tafia.’

Clousiot was overjoyed: he was full of confidence in himself, in me and in the plan. There was only one thing that worried him: although the Arab turnkey did come very often it was not every night that he came into the ward itself; and when he did it was rare that he came in very late. Another question: who could we have as a third? There was a Corsican belonging to the Nice underworld, a man called Biaggi. He had been in penal since 1929 and he was in this high-security ward because he had recently killed a guy – he was being held while that charge was investigated. Clousiot and I wondered whether we ought to put it up to him, and if so, when. While we were talking about this in an undertone an eighteen-year-old fairy came towards us, as pretty as a girl. Maturette was his name, and he had been condemned to death but reprieved because of his youth – seventeen when he murdered this taxi-driver. There were these two kids of sixteen and seventeen in the dock at the assizes, and instead of the one laying the blame on the other, each claimed that he had killed the man. But the taxi-driver had only one bullet in him. The kids’ attitude at the time of the trial had won them the convicts’ esteem.

Very much the young lady, Maturette came up to us and speaking in a girlish voice he asked us for a light. We gave him one; and more than that, I made him a present of four cigarettes and a box of matches. He thanked me with a languishing, come-on smile and we let him go. All at once Clousiot said, ‘Papi, we’re saved. The Arab’s going to come in as often as we like and when we like. It’s in the bag.’

‘How come?’

‘It’s simple. We’ll tell this little Maturette to make the Arab fall for him. Arabs love boys – everyone knows that. Once that’s done, there’s no great difficulty in getting him to come by night to have a swig at the boy. All the kid has to do is to go coy and say he’s afraid of being seen, for the Arab to come just when it suits us.’

‘Leave it to me.’

I went over to Maturette, who welcomed me with a winning smile. He thought he had aroused me with his first simper. Straight away I said, ‘You’ve got it wrong. Go to the lavatory.’ He went, and when we were there I said, ‘If you repeat a word of what I’m going to say. I’ll kill you. Listen: will you do so-and-so and so-and-so and so-and-so for money? How much? As a paid job for us, or do you want to go with us?’

‘I’d like to go with you. OK?’ Done. We shook hands.

He went to bed, and after a few words with Clousiot I went too. At eight o’clock that evening Maturette went and sat at the window. He didn’t have to call the Arab: he came all by himself, and they fell into a murmured conversation. At ten Maturette went to bed. We had been lying down, one eye open, since nine. The Arab came in, went his rounds and found a dead man. He knocked on the door and a little while later two stretcher-bearers came and took the corpse away. This dead man was going to be useful to us, because he would make the Arab’s inspections at any time of the night seem quite reasonable. The next day, advised by us, Maturette fixed to see the Arab at eleven. When the time came round the turnkey appeared, passed in front of the kid’s bed, pulled his foot to wake him up, and went off towards the lavatory. Maturette followed him. A quarter of an hour later the turnkey came out, went straight to the door and out through it. Just after that Maturette returned to his bed without speaking to us. To cut it short, the next day was the same, only at midnight. Everything was set up: the Arab would come exactly when the kid said.

On 27 November 1933 there were two bed-legs ready to be removed and used as clubs, and at four o’clock in the afternoon I was waiting for a note from Sierra. Chatal, the attendant, appeared: he had nothing in writing: he just said to me, ‘Francois Sierra told me to say Jesus is waiting for you at the place you know. Good luck.’

At eight that night Maturette said to the Arab, ‘Come after midnight, because that way we can stay longer together.’

The Arab said he’d come after midnight. Dead on midnight we were ready. The Arab came in at about a quarter past twelve; he went straight to Maturette’s bed, tweaked his foot and went on to the lavatory. Maturette went in after him. I wrenched the leg off my bed: it made a little noise as it lurched over. No sound from Clousiot’s. I was to stand behind the lavatory door and Clousiot was to walk towards it to attract the Arab’s attention. There was a twenty-minutes’ wait and then everything moved very fast. The Arab came out of the lavatory and, surprised at seeing Clousiot, said, ‘What are you doing here in the middle of the ward at this time of night? Get back to bed.’

At that moment I hit him on the back of the neck and he dropped without a sound. Quickly I put on his clothes and shoes: we dragged him under a bed, and before shoving him completely out of sight I gave him another crack on the nape. That put paid to him.

Not a single one of the eighty men in the ward had stirred. I went quickly towards the door, followed by Clousiot and Maturette, both of them in their shirts. I knocked. The warder opened. I brought my iron down on his head. The other, opposite him, dropped his rifle: he’d certainly been asleep. Before he could move I knocked him out. My two never uttered: Clousiot’s went ‘Ah!’ before he dropped. My two stayed there in their chairs, stunned. The third was stretched out on the floor. We held our breath. It seemed to us that everybody must have heard that ‘Ah!’ It had indeed been pretty loud; and yet nobody moved.

We didn’t heave them into the ward: we went straight off with the three rifles. Clousiot first, then the kid, then me: down the stairs, half-lit by a lantern. Clousiot had dropped his iron; I still had mine in my left hand, and in my right the rifle. At the bottom of the stairs, nothing. Ink-black night all round us. We had to look hard to make out the wall over on the river side. We hurried towards it. Once we were there, I bent down. Clousiot climbed up, straddled the top, hauled Maturette up and then me. We let ourselves drop into the darkness on the far side. Clousiot fell badly into a hole, twisting his foot. Maturette and I landed properly. We two got up: we had left the rifles before we went over. Clousiot tried to get to his feet but couldn’t: he said his leg was broken. I left Maturette with Clousiot and ran towards the corner of the wall, feeling it all the way with my hand. It was so dark that when I got to the end of the wall I didn’t know it, and with my hand reaching out into emptiness I fell flat on my face. Over on the river side I heard a voice saying, ‘Is that you?’

‘Yes. That Jesus?’

‘Yes.’ He flicked a match for half a second. I fixed his position, plunged in and swam to him. There were two of them in the boat.

‘You in first. Which are you?’

‘Papillon.’

‘Good.’

‘Jesus, we must pull upstream. My friend’s broken his leg jumping off the wall.’

‘Take this paddle, then, and shove.’

The three paddles dug into the water and the light boat shot across the hundred yards between us and the place where I supposed the others were – you could see nothing. I called, ‘Clousiot!’

‘For Christ’s sake shut up! Fatgut, flick your lighter.’ Sparks flashed: they saw it. Clousiot whistled between his teeth the way they do in Lyons; it’s a whistle that makes no noise at all but that you hear very clearly. You’d say it was a snake hissing. He kept up this whistling all the time, and it led us to him. Fatgut got out, took Clousiot in his arms and put him into the boat. Then Maturette got in and then Fatgut. There were five of us and the water came to within two inches of the gunwale.

‘Don’t anyone move without saying,’ said Jesus. ‘Papillon, stop paddling. Put the paddle across your knees. Fatgut, shove!’ And quickly, helped by the current, the boat plunged into the night.

Half a mile lower down, when we passed the prison, ill-lit by the current from a third-rate dynamo, we were in the middle of the river and the tide was tearing us along at an unbelievable rate. Fatgut had stopped paddling. Only Jesus had his out, with its handle tight against his thigh, just to keep the boat steady. He was not rowing at all, only steering.

Jesus said, ‘Now we can talk and have a smoke. I think we’ve brought it off. Are you certain you didn’t kill anyone?’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘Christ, Jesus, you’ve double-crossed me!’ said Fatgut. ‘You told me it was a harmless little break and no fuss, and now it turns out to be an internees’ break, from what I can gather.’

‘Yes, they’re internees. I didn’t feel like telling you, Fatgut, or you wouldn’t have helped me: and I needed someone. But why should you worry? If we’re shopped I’ll take it all on myself.’

‘That’s the right way of looking at it, Jesus. I don’t want to risk my head for the hundred francs you’ve paid me; nor a lifer if there’s anyone wounded.’

I said, ‘Fatgut, I’ll give you a present of a thousand francs between you.’

‘OK, then, brother. That sounds like a square deal to me. Thanks, because we starve to death there in the village. It’s worse being outside than in. If you’re in, at least you can fill your belly every day; and they find you in clothes.’

‘It doesn’t hurt you too much, mate?’ said Jesus to Clousiot.

‘It’s all right,’ said Clousiot. ‘But what are we going to do, Papillon, with my leg broken?’

‘We’ll see. Where we going, Jesus?’

‘I’m going to hide you in a creek twenty miles from the mouth of the river. There you can lie up for a week and let the worst of the warders’ and trackers’ hunt blow over. You must give them the idea you went right down the Maroni and out to sea this very night. The trackers go in boats with no motor, and they’re the most dangerous. If they’re on the watch, it can be fatal to you to talk or cough or have a fire. As for the screws, they’re in motor-boats that are too big to go up the creeks – they’d run aground.’

The darkness was lessening. For a long time we searched for a landmark known only to Jesus, and it was almost four o’clock before we found it: then we literally went right into the bush. The boat flattened the small undergrowth, which straightened up again behind us, making a very thick protective curtain. You had to be a wizard to know whether there was enough water to float a boat. We went in, pushing aside the branches that barred our passage and thrusting into the bush for more than an hour. All at once we were there, in a kind of canal, and we stopped. There was clean grass on the bank; and now, at six o’clock, the light did not penetrate the leaves of the huge trees. Beneath this impressive roof there were the sounds of hundreds of creatures quite unknown to us. Jesus said, ‘Here is where you have to wait for a week. I’ll come on the seventh day and bring you food.’ From under the thick vegetation he pulled a very small canoe, about six feet long. Two paddles in it. This was the craft he was going back to Saint-Laurent in, on the flood-tide.

Now we took care of Clousiot, who was lying there on the bank. He was still in his shirt, so his legs were bare. We trimmed dry branches with the axe, making splints of them. Fatgut heaved on his foot; Clousiot sweated hard and then at a given moment he cried, ‘Stop! It hurts less in this position, so the bone must be in its right place.’ We put on the splints and tied them with new hemp cord from the boat. His pain was eased. Jesus had bought four pairs of trousers, four shirts and four relégués’ woollen lumber-jackets. Maturette and Clousiot put them on: I stayed in the Arab’s clothes. We had a tot of rum. This was the second bottle since we left – it warmed us, which was a good thing. The mosquitoes did not give us a moment’s peace: we had to sacrifice a packet of tobacco. We put it to soak in a calabash and smeared the nicotine-juice over our faces, hands and feet. The woollen jackets were splendid; they kept us warm in spite of this penetrating damp.

Fatgut said, ‘We’re off. What about this thousand francs you promised?’ I went behind a bush and came back with a brand-new thousand note.

‘Be seeing you. Don’t stir from here for eight days,’ said Jesus. ‘We’ll come on the seventh. The eighth you can get out to sea. Meanwhile make the mainsail and jib; put the boat to rights, everything in its place. Fix the pintle – the rudder’s not shipped. If we don’t come within ten days, it means we’ve been arrested in the village. As there was an attack on a warder, which adds some spice to the break, there will surely be the most God-almighty bleeding rampage about it all.’

Clousiot had told us he didn’t leave the rifle at the bottom of the wall. He had flung it over, and the water was so close (which he hadn’t known) that it must certainly have gone into the river. Jesus said that was fine, because if it was not found the trackers were going to think we were armed. And since they were the really dangerous ones, we should therefore have nothing to be afraid of. Because they only had a revolver and a jungle-knife and if they thought we had rifles, they would never risk it.

Good-bye. Good-bye. If we were found and we had to leave the boat, we should go up the little stream as far as the dry bush and then steer by compass, always keeping north. In two or three days’ march we were likely to come across the death-camp called Charvin. There we should have to pay someone to tell Jesus we were in such and such a place. The two old lags pushed off. A few moments later their canoe had vanished: we neither heard nor saw anything more at all.

Daylight comes into the bush in a very special way. You would think you were in an arcade whose top caught the sun and never let a single ray make its way down to the bottom. It began to grow hot. And now here we were, Maturette, Clousiot and me, quite alone. Our first reaction was to laugh – the whole thing had run on oiled wheels. The only hitch was Clousiot’s broken leg, though he said himself that now it was held between flat pieces of wood, it was all right. We could brew the coffee straight away. This we did very quickly, making a fire and drinking a great mug of black coffee apiece, sweetened with brown sugar. It was marvellous. We had used ourselves up so much since the evening before that we hadn’t the energy to look at the things or to inspect the boat. We’d see to all that later. We were free, free, free. Exactly thirty-seven days had passed since I reached Guiana. If we brought this break off, my lifer wouldn’t have been a very long one. I said aloud, ‘Monsieur le President, how many years does penal servitude for life last in France?’ and I burst out laughing. So did Maturette – he had a lifer too. Clousiot said, ‘don’t crow too soon. Colombia’s a long way off, and this hollowed-out tree-trunk doesn’t seem to me much of a thing to go to sea in.’

I did not reply, because to tell the truth until the last moment I had thought it was just the canoe meant to take us to the real boat, the boat for the sea voyage. When I found I was wrong, I did not like to say anything, so as not to discourage my friends in the first place, and in the second not to give Jesus the idea that I didn’t know what kind of boats were usually used for a break – he seemed to think it perfectly natural.

We spent the first day talking and getting to know a little about the bush – it was completely strange to us. Monkeys and squirrels of some kind flung themselves about overhead in the most astonishing way. A herd of peccaries came down to drink: they are a kind of small wild pig. There were at least two thousand of them. They plunged into the creek and swam about, tearing off the hanging roots. An alligator emerged from God knows where and caught one pig by the foot: it started to shriek and squeal like a steam-engine, and all the others rushed at the alligator, clambering on to it and trying to bite the corners of its enormous mouth. At every blow of the alligator’s tail a pig flew into the air, one to the left, the next to the right. One pig was stunned and it floated there, belly up. Instantly its companions ate it. The creek was red with blood. This scene lasted twenty minutes and then the alligator escaped into the water. We never saw it again.

We slept well, and in the morning we made our coffee. I took off my jacket so as to wash with a big bar of common soap we found in the boat. Using my scalpel, Maturette shaved me, more or less, and then he shaved Clousiot. He himself had no beard. When I picked up my jacket to put it on again, a huge, hairy, blackish-purple spider fell out. Its hairs were very long and each ended in a little shining ball. The monstrous thing must have weighed at least a pound: I squashed it, feeling disgusted. We took everything out of the boat, including the little water-barrel. The water was violet, and it seemed to me Jesus had put in too much permanganate to make it keep. There were well-corked bottles with matches and strikers. The compass was only a schoolboy’s job – it just gave north, south, east and west: no graduations. The mast was no more than eight feet long, so we sewed the flour-sacks into a lug-sail with a border of rope to strengthen it. And I made a little triangular jib to help make the boat lie close.

When we stepped the mast I found the boat’s bottom was not sound: the slot for the mast was eaten away and badly worn. When I put in the spikes for the hinges that were to hold the rudder, they went in as if the hull were butter. The boat was rotten. That sod Jesus was sending us to our death. Very unwittingly I explained all this to the others: I had no right to hide it from them. What were we going to do about it? Make Jesus find us a sounder boat when he came, that’s what. We’d take his weapons from him, and carrying a knife and the axe I’d go to the village with him and look for another boat. It was a great risk to take; but not so great as putting to sea in a coffin. The stores were all right: there was a wicker-covered bottle of oil and some tins full of manioc flour. We could go a long way on that.

That morning we saw a wonderfully strange sight: a troop of grey-faced monkeys had a battle with monkeys whose faces were black and woolly. During the struggle Maturette came in for a piece of wood on the head that gave him a lump the size of a walnut.

Now we had been there five days and four nights. Last night rain fell in torrents. We sheltered ourselves under wild banana leaves. Their shiny sides poured with water, but we were not wetted at all, only our feet. This morning, as we drank our coffee, I thought about Jesus’s wickedness. Taking advantage of our lack of experience to palm off this rotting boat on us! Just to save five hundred or a thousand francs he was sending three men to certain death. I wondered whether I shouldn’t kill him once I had forced him to get us another boat.

Suddenly we were startled by a noise like jays, a shrieking so harsh and unpleasant that I told Maturette to take the jungle-knife and go and see what was up. Five minutes later he came back, beckoning. I followed him and we reached a spot about a hundred and fifty yards from the boat: hanging there I saw a great pheasant or wild-fowl, twice the size of a cock. It was caught in a noose and it was hanging by its foot from a branch. With one blow of the jungle-knife I took off its head, to stop its ghastly shrieks. I felt its weight: it must have been at least ten pounds. It had spurs like a cock. We decided to eat it, but while we were thinking it over, it occurred to us that somebody must have set that snare and that there might be others. We went to have a look. When we were back there we found something very odd – a positive fence or wall about a foot high, made of woven leaves and creepers, some ten yards from the creek. This barrier ran parallel with the water. Every now and then there was a gap, and in this gap, hidden by twigs, the end of a noose of brass wire fixed to a bent-over whippy branch. I saw at once that the creature must come up against this hedge and then go along it, trying to get past. On finding the gap, it would pass through, but its feet would catch in the wire and spring the branch. Then there it would be, hanging in the air until the owner of the snares came to take it.