wants to see you.’
An old man appeared, barefoot and wearing striped blue pyjamas that reminded me of our prison uniform. ‘Why, Snowball, who can be coming to see me at this time of night? Papillon! No! It can’t be true!’ He clasped me in his arms. He said, ‘Bring the lamp closer, Snowball, so that I can see my old friend’s face. It’s you all right, mate! It’s certainly you! Welcome, welcome, welcome! This kip, what little dough I’ve got, and my old woman’s grand-daughter – they’re all yours. You only have to say the word.’
We drank the Pernod, the champagne and the rum; and from time to time Julot sang. ‘So we did them in the eye after all, didn’t we, Papi? There’s nothing like bashing around. Take me, I came through Colombia, Panama, Costa Rica and Jamaica; and then, about fifteen years ago now, I reached here; and I’m happy with Snowball – she’s the best woman a man could ask for. When are you leaving? Are you here for long?’
‘No. A week.’
‘What did you come for?’
‘To take over the casino, with a contract between us and the president himself.’
‘Brother, I’d love you to spend the rest of your life here with me in this bleeding wilderness; but if it’s the president you’re in touch with, don’t you fix any sort of deal at all. He’ll have you killed the minute he sees your joint is making a go of it.’
‘Thanks for the advice.’
‘Hey there, Snowball! Get ready for your not-for-tourists voodoo dance. The one and only genuine article for my friend.’ Another time I’ll tell you about this terrific not-for-tourists voodoo dance.
So Julot escaped, and here were we, Dega, Fernandez and me, still hanging about. Now and then, without seeming to, I looked at the bars over the windows. They were lengths of genuine railway line and there was nothing to be done about them. The only possibility was the door. It was guarded night and day by three armed warders. Since Julot’s escape the watch had been much sharper. The patrols came round at shorter intervals and the doctor was not so friendly. Chatal only came into the ward twice a day, to give the injections and to take the temperatures. A second week went by and once more I paid two hundred francs. Dega talked about everything except escape. Yesterday he saw my scalpel and he said, ‘You’ve still got that? What for?’
Angrily I replied, ‘To look after myself, and you too if necessary.’
Fernandez was not a Spaniard: he was an Argentine. He was a fine sort of a man, a genuine high-flier; but old Carora’s crap had left its mark on him too. One day I heard him say to Dega. ‘It seems the islands are very healthy, not like here: and it’s not hot over there. You can catch dysentery in this ward just going to the lavatory, because you may pick up germs.’ In this ward of seventy men, one or two died of dysentery every day. It was an odd thing, but they all died at low tide in the afternoon or the evening. No sick man ever died in the morning. Why? One of nature’s mysteries.
Tonight I had an argument with Dega. I told him that sometimes the Arab turnkey was stupid enough to come in at night and pull the sheet off the faces of the very sick men who had covered themselves up. We could knock him out and put on his clothes (we wore shirt and sandals – that was all). Once dressed I’d go out, suddenly snatch a rifle from one of the screws, cover them, make them go into a cell and close the door. Then we’d jump the hospital wall on the Maroni side, drop into the water and let ourselves go with the current. After that we’d make up our minds what to do next. Since we had money, we could buy a boat and provisions to get away by sea. Both of them turned my plan down flat, and they even criticized it. I felt they’d quite lost their guts: I was bitterly disappointed: and the days dropped by.
Now it was three weeks all but two days we had been here. There were ten left to try making a dash for it, or fifteen at the most. Today, 21 November 1933, a day not to be forgotten, Joanes Clousiot came into the ward – the man they had tried to murder at Saint-Martin, in the barber’s. His eyes were closed and almost sightless: they were full of pus. As soon as Chatal had gone I went over to him. Quickly he told me that the other men for internment had gone off to the islands more than a fortnight ago, but he had been overlooked. Three days back a clerk had given him the word. He had put a castor-oil seed in each eye, and all this pus had got him into hospital. He was dead keen to escape. He told me he was ready for anything, even killing if need be: he would get out, come what may. He had three thousand francs. When his eyes were washed with warm water he could see properly right away. I told him my plan for a break: he liked it, but he said that to catch the warders by surprise two of us would have to go out, or if possible three. We could undo the legs of the beds, and with an iron bed-leg apiece, we could knock them cold. According to him they wouldn’t believe you would fire even if you had a gun in your hands, and they might call the other screws on guard in the building Julot escaped from, not twenty yards away.
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
