in a couple of hours. There’s everything there – a rudder and its tiller, a thirteen-foot iron-wood mast and a brand-new canvas sail. What’ll you give me?’
‘You name a price. I don’t know the value of things here.’
‘Three thousand francs, if you can pay it: if not, go and fetch the rifle tomorrow night and we’ll do a swap.’
‘No. I’d rather pay.’
‘OK, it’s a deal. La Puce, let’s have some coffee.’
La Puce, the near-dwarf, who had come for me, went to a plank fixed to the wall over the fire, took down a mess-tin shining with cleanliness and newness, poured coffee into it from a bottle and set it on the fire. After a while he took it off, poured coffee into various mugs standing by the stones for Toussaint to pass to the men behind him, and gave me the mess-tin, saying ‘Don’t be afraid of drinking. This one’s for visitors only. No sick man ever uses it.’
I took the bowl, drank, and then rested it on my knee. As I did so I noticed a finger sticking to its side. I was beginning to grasp the situation when La Puce said, ‘Hell, I’ve lost another finger. Where the devil can it have got to?’
‘Here it is,’ I said, showing him the tin. He picked off the finger, threw it in the fire and gave me back the bowl.
‘It’s all right to drink,’ he said, ‘because I’ve only got dry leprosy. I come to pieces spare part by spare part, but I don’t rot – I’m not catching.’
I smelt burning meat. I thought, ‘That must be the finger.’
Toussaint said, ‘You’ll have to spend the whole day here until the evening ebb. You must go and tell your friends. Carry the one with the broken leg up to a hut, empty the canoe and sink it. There’s no one here can give you a hand – you know why, of course.’
I hurried back to the others. We lifted Clousiot out and then carried him to a hut. An hour later everything was out of the canoe and carefully arranged on the ground. La Puce asked for the canoe and a paddle as a present. I gave it to him and he went off to sink it in a place he knew. The night passed quickly. We were all three of us in the hut, lying on new blankets sent by Toussaint. They reached us still wrapped in their strong backing paper. Stretched out there at my ease. I told Clousiot and Maturette the details of what had happened since I went ashore and about the deal I had made with Toussaint. Then, without thinking, Clousiot said a stupid thing. ‘So the break’s costing six thousand five hundred. I’ll give you half, Papillon – I mean the three thousand francs that I have.’
‘We don’t want to muck about with accounts like a bunch of bank-clerks. So long as I’ve got the cash, I pay. After that – well, we’ll see.’
None of the lepers came into the hut. Day broke, and Toussaint appeared. ‘Good morning. You can go out without worrying. No one can come on you unexpectedly here. Up a coconut-palm on the top of the island there’s a guy watching to see if there are any screws’ boats on the river. There’s none in sight. So long as that bit of white cloth is up there, it means no boats. If he sees anything he’ll come down and say. You can pick papayas yourselves and eat them, if you like.’
I said, ‘Toussaint, what about the keel?’
‘We’ll make it out of a plank from the infirmary door. That’s heavy snake-wood. Two planks will do the job. We took advantage of the night to haul the boat up to the top. Come and have a look.’ We went. It was a splendid sixteen-foot boat, quite new, with two thwarts – one had a hole for the mast. It was so heavy that Maturette and I had a job turning it over. The sail and rigging were brand-new. There were rings in the sides to lash things to, such as the water-barrel. We set to work. By noon a keel, deepening as it ran aft, was firmly fixed with long screws and the four spikes I had with me.
Standing there in a ring, the lepers silently watched us work. Toussaint told us how to set about it and we followed his instructions. Toussaint’s face looked natural enough – no bad places on it. But when he spoke you noticed that only one half of his face moved, the left half. He told me that; and he also told me he had dry leprosy. His chest and his right arm were paralysed too, and he was expecting his right leg to go presently. His right eye was as set as one made of glass: it could see, but not move. I won’t give any of the lepers’ names. Maybe those who knew or loved them were never told the hideous way they rotted alive.
As I worked I talked to Toussaint. No one else said a word. Except once, when I was just going to pick up some hinges they had wrenched off a piece of furniture in the infirmary to strengthen the hold of the keel: one said, ‘Don’t take them yet. Leave them there. I cut myself getting one off, and although I wiped it there’s still a little blood.’ Another leper poured rum over the hinge and lit it twice. ‘Now you can use it,’ he said.
During our work Toussaint said to one of the lepers, ‘You’ve escaped a good many times; tell Papillon just what he ought to do, since none of these three has ever made a break.’
Straight away the leper began, ‘The ebb will start very early this afternoon. The tide’ll change at three. By nightfall, about six o’clock, you’ll have a very strong run that’ll take you to about sixty miles from the mouth of the river in less than three hours. When you have to pull in, it’ll be about nine. You must tie up good and solid to a tree in the bush during the six hours of flood: that brings you to three in the morning. Don’t set off then, though, because the ebb doesn’t run fast enough. Get out into the middle at say half past four. You’ll have an hour and a half to cover the thirty odd miles before sunrise. Everything depends on that hour and a half. At six o’clock, when the sun comes up, you have to be out at sea. Even if the screws do see you, they can’t follow, because they’d reach the bar at the mouth of the river just as the flood begins. They can’t get over it, and you’ll already be across. You’ve got to have that lead of half a mile when they see you – it’s life or death. There’s only one sail here. What did you have on the canoe?’
‘Mainsail and jib.’
‘This is a heavy boat: it’ll stand two jibs – a staysail and an outer jib to keep her bows well up. Go out of the river with everything set. There are always heavy seas at the mouth there, and you want to take them head on. Make your friends lie down in the bottom to keep her steady and get a good grip on the tiller. Don’t tie the sheet to your leg, but pass it through that fairlead and hold it with a turn round your wrist. If you see that the wind and a heavy sea are going to lay you right over, let everything go and you’ll straighten up right away. If that happens, don’t you stop, but let the mainsail spill the wind and carry right on with the jib and staysail full. When you’re out in the blue water you’ll have time enough to put it all to rights – not before that. Do you know your course?’
‘No. All I know is that Venezuela and Colombia lie north-west.’
‘That’s right; but take care not to be forced back on shore. Dutch Guiana, on the other side of the river, hands escaped men back, and so does British Guiana. Trinidad doesn’t, but they make you leave in a fortnight. Venezuela returns you, after you’ve worked on the roads for a year or two.’
I listened as hard as I could. He told me he went off from time to time, but since he was a leper everybody sent him away at once. He admitted he had never been farther than Georgetown, in British Guiana. His leprosy could only be seen on his feet, which had lost all their toes. He was barefoot. Toussaint told me to repeat all the advice I had been given, and I did so without making a mistake. At this point Jean sans Peur said, ‘How long ought he to sail out to sea?’
I
