raw. Maturette was the same; so was Clousiot. Twice a day we rubbed our faces and hands with oil, but that was not enough – the tropical sun soon dried it.
By the sun it must have been two o’clock in the afternoon. I ate, and then, seeing it was dead calm, we rigged the sail as an awning. Fish came round the boat where Maturette had done the washing-up. I took the jungle-knife and told Maturette to throw in some rice – anyhow it had begun to ferment since the water had got at it. The fish all gathered where the rice struck the water, all on the surface; and as one of them had his head almost out of the water I hit at him very hard. The next moment there he was, belly up. He weighed twenty pounds: we gutted him and cooked him in salt water. We ate him that evening with manioc flour.
Now it was eleven days since we had set out to sea. In all that time we had only seen one ship, very far away on the horizon. I began to wonder where the hell we were. Far out, that was for sure; but how did we lie in relation to Trinidad or any of the other English islands? Speak of the devil … and indeed there, right ahead, we saw a dark speck that gradually grew larger and larger. Would it be a ship or a deep-sea fishing boat? We’d got it all wrong: it was not coming towards us. It was a ship: we could see it clearly now, but going across. It was coming nearer, true enough, but its slanting course was not going to bring us together. There was no wind, so our sails drooped miserably: the ship would surely not have seen us. Suddenly there was the bowl of a siren and then three short blasts. The ship changed course and stood straight for our boat.
‘I hope she doesn’t come too close,’ said Clousiot.
‘There’s no danger: it’s as calm as a millpond.’
She was a tanker. The nearer she came, the more clearly we could make out the people on deck. They must have been wondering what this nutshell of a boat was doing there, right out at sea. Slowly she approached, and now we could see the officers and the men of the crew. And the cook. Then women in striped dresses appeared on deck, and men in coloured shirts. We took it these were passengers. Passengers on a tanker – that struck me as odd. Slowly the ship came close and the captain hailed us in English, ‘Where do you come from?’
‘French Guiana.’
‘Do you speak French?’ asked a woman.
‘Oui, Madame.’
‘What are you doing so far out at sea?’
‘We go where God’s wind blows us.’
The lady spoke to the captain and then said, ‘The captain says to come aboard. He’ll haul your little boat on deck.’
‘Tell him we say thank you very much but we’re quite happy in our boat.’
‘Why don’t you want help?’
‘Because we are on the run and we aren’t going in your direction.’
‘Where are you going?’
‘Martinique or even farther. Where are we?’
‘Far out in the ocean.’
‘What’s the course for the West Indies?’
‘Can you read an English chart?’
‘Yes.’
A moment later they lowered us an English chart, some packets of cigarettes, a roast leg of mutton and some bread. ‘Look at the chart.’
I looked and then I said, ‘I must steer west by south to hit the British West Indies, is that right?’
‘Yes.’
‘About how many miles?’
‘You’ll be there in two days,’ said the captain.
‘Good-bye! Thank you all very much.’
‘The captain congratulates you on your fine seamanship.’
‘Thank you. Good-bye!’
The tanker moved gently off, almost touching us; I drew away to avoid the churning of the propellers and just at that moment a sailor tossed me a uniform cap. It dropped right in the middle of the boat; it had a gold band and an anchor, and it was with this cap on my head that we reached Trinidad two days later, with no further difficulty.
Trinidad
Long before we saw it, the birds had told us land was near. It was half-past seven in the morning when they began to circle round us. ‘We’re getting there, man! We’re getting there! The first part of the break, the hardest part – we’ve brought it off. Freedom, freedom, freedom for ever!’ Joy made us shout like schoolboys. Our faces were plastered with the coconut-butter that the tanker had given us for our sunburn. At about nine o’clock we saw the land. A breeze carried us in quite fast over a gentle sea. It was not until four in the afternoon that we could make out the details of a long island, fringed with little clumps of white houses and topped with great numbers of coconut-palms. So far we could not tell whether it was really an island or a peninsula, nor whether these houses were lived in. We had to wait another hour and more before we could distinguish people running towards the beach where we were going to land. In under twenty minutes a highly-coloured crowd had gathered. The entire little village had come out on to the shore to welcome us. Later we learnt that it was called San Fernando.
Three hundred yards from the beach I dropped the anchor: it bit at once. I did so partly to see how the people would take it and partly so as not to damage my boat when it grounded, supposing the bottom was coral. We furled the sails and waited. A little boat came towards us. Two blacks paddling and one white man with a sun-helmet on.
‘Welcome to Trinidad,’ said the white man in perfect French. The black men laughed, showing all their teeth.
‘Thank you for your kind words, Monsieur. Is the bottom coral or sand?’
‘It’s sand. You can run in without any danger.’
We hauled up the anchor, and the waves gently pushed us in towards the beach. We had scarcely touched before ten men waded in and with a single heave they ran the boat up out of the water. They gazed at us and stroked us, and Negro or Indian coolie women beckoned to invite us in. The white man who spoke French explained that they all wanted us to stay with them. Maturette caught up a handful of sand and kissed it. Great enthusiasm. I had told the white man about Clousiot’s condition and he had him carried to his house, which was very close to the beach. He told us we could leave all our belongings in the boat until tomorrow – no one would touch anything. They all called out, ‘Good captain, long ride in little boat.’
Night fell, and when I had asked them to heave the boat a little higher up I tied it to a much bigger one lying on the beach; then I followed the Englishman and Maturette came after me. There I saw Clousiot looking very pleased with himself in an armchair, with a lady and a girl beside him and his wounded leg stretched out on a chair.
‘My wife and my daughter,’ said the gentleman. ‘I have a son at the university in England.’
‘You are very welcome in this house,’ said the lady in French.
‘Sit down, gentlemen,’ said the girl, placing us two wicker armchairs.
