Papillon (10 page)

At four in the afternoon on November 27, 1933, with two legs of the bed ready as bludgeons, I waited for word from Sierra. Chatal, the orderly, arrived but without a note. All he said was, “François Sierra told me to tell you that Jésus is waiting at the stated place. Good luck.”

At eight in the evening Maturette said to the Arab, “Come after midnight. That way we can be together longer.”

The Arab said he would. On the stroke of midnight we were ready. The Arab came in at quarter past twelve, went straight to Maturette’s bed, pulled his feet and continued toward the toilets. Maturette followed him. I yanked the leg off my bed; it made a noise as it fell. Clousiot’s made no sound. I was to stand behind the door and Clousiot was to walk up to the Arab to attract his attention. After a twenty-minute wait everything went very fast. The Arab came out of the toilets and, surprised at seeing Clousiot, said:

“What are you doing in the middle of the room at this hour of the night? Get back into bed.”

Then I whacked him on the head and he fell without a sound. Quickly I put on his clothes and shoes. We dragged him under the bed and, just before we pushed him completely under, I gave him another crack on the back of the neck. Now he was really out.

Not one of the men in the room budged. I went straight to the door, followed by Clousiot and Maturette, who were both in their smocks. I knocked, the guard opened up, and I swung my iron leg, whack! right on his head. The other guard facing us dropped his carbine; he must have been asleep. Before he could react, I smacked him. None of mine made a sound; Clousiot’s said “Ah!” before collapsing on the floor. My two guards were still on their chairs, the third was stretched out stiff. We held our breaths. To us, that “Ah!” had been heard by the entire world. It was certainly loud enough, yet no one moved. We left them where they lay and took off with their three carbines, Clousiot first, the kid in the middle and me last. We ran down the dimly lit stairs. Clousiot had left his bed leg behind; I kept mine in my left hand, the rifle in my right. Downstairs, nothing. Around us the night was as dark as ink. We had to look hard to find the wall next to the river. We went as fast as we could. Once at the wall, I made a footrest with my hands. Clousiot climbed up, straddled the wall, pulled Maturette up, then me. We slid down the other side. Clousiot fell into a hole and hurt his foot. Maturette and I made it without trouble. We both got up; we had abandoned the rifles before jumping. But when Clousiot tried to get up, he couldn’t. He said he had broken his leg. I left Maturette with Clousiot and ran toward the corner of the wall, feeling along with my hand. It was so dark that I didn’t see when I came to the end of the wall, and when my hand kept on going, I fell flat on my face. Down by the river, I heard a voice:

“Is that you?”

“Yes. Jésus?”

“Yes.”

He lit a match. I stepped into the water and waded over to him. There were two men.

“You get in first. Who are you?”

“Papillon.”

“O.K.”

“Jésus, we have to go back up. My friend broke his leg jumping off the wall.”

“Then take this paddle and row.”

The three paddles dipped into the water and the boat quickly made the hundred yards between us and the place where I thought they were—for we could see nothing. I called, “Clousiot!”

“For Christ’s sake, don’t talk. L’Enflé, use your lighter.” A few sparks flew off; they saw them. Clousiot gave a whistle between his teeth—a Lyon whistle; it makes no noise, but you can hear it clearly, like the hiss of a snake. He kept whistling until we came abreast. L’Enflé got out, picked Clousiot up in his arms and placed him in the boat. Then Maturette climbed in and finally L’Enflé. We were five, and the water came to within two fingers of the gunwales.

“Nobody move without a warning,” Jésus said. “Papillon, stop paddling; put your paddle across your knees. Let’s go, L’Enflé!”

Helped by the current, the boat plunged into the night. A third of a mile downstream, we passed the penitentiary. We were in the middle of the river and the current was carrying us at an incredible speed. L’Enflé was feathering his paddle. Jésus kept the boat steady, the handle of his paddle tight against his thigh—not paddling, just steering.

Then Jésus said, “Now we can smoke. It went all right, I think. You’re sure you didn’t kill anybody?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Goddammit! You double-crossed me, Jésus?” L’Enflé said. “You said it was a simple
cavale
. Now it seems it’s a
cavale
of internees.”

“That’s right, they’re internees. I didn’t tell you, L’Enflé, because you wouldn’t have helped me and I had to have another man. Relax. If we’re caught, I’ll take all the blame.”

“You’d better, Jésus. For the hundred francs you paid me, I don’t want to risk my neck if somebody got killed or wounded.”

I said, “L’Enflé, I’ll make you a present of a thousand francs for the two of you.”

“All right then,
mec
. That’s fair enough. Thanks. We’re dying of hunger in the village. It’s worse being liberated than in prison. In prison you at least get food every day, and clothes.”

“
Mec
,” Jésus asked Clousiot, “does it hurt a lot?”

“Not too bad,” Clousiot said. “But how are we going to make it with my leg broken, Papillon?”

“We’ll see. Where are we going, Jésus?”

“I’m going to hide you up a creek about twelve miles from the mouth of the river. You stay there eight days until the guards and the man hunters give up looking. You want them to think you went down the Maroni and into the sea on the same night. The man hunters use boats without engines. A fire, talking, coughing could be fatal if they’re anywhere near. The guards use motor-boats; they’re too big to go up the creek—they’d run aground.”

The night grew lighter. It was nearly four in the morning when, after a long search, we finally came to the hiding place known only to Jésus. We were literally in the bush. The boat flattened the short brush, but once we had passed over it, it straightened up again, providing a thick protective screen. It would take a sorcerer to know that there was enough water here to float a boat. We entered the creek, then spent over an hour penetrating the brush and separating the branches that barred our passage. Suddenly we found ourselves in a kind of canal and we stopped. The bank was neat and green and the trees huge, their foliage so thick that daylight—it was now six o’clock—couldn’t get through. Thousands of beasts we had never heard of lived under this impressive canopy. Jésus said, “This is where you stay for eight days. On the seventh I’ll come and bring you supplies.” He untangled the thick vegetation and pulled out a tiny dugout six feet long. Inside were two paddles. This was the boat to take him back to Saint-Laurent on the rising tide.

It was now time to do something about Clousiot, who was stretched out on the bank. He was still wearing only his smock, so his legs were bare. With our hatchet we split some dried branches to serve as splints. L’Enflé pulled on his foot and Clousiot broke into a heavy sweat. Suddenly he said, “Stop! It hurts less like that. The bone must be in place.” We arranged the splints and tied them with a new hemp rope we found in the boat. The pain eased. Jésus had brought four pairs of pants, four shirts and four wool sweaters originally intended for
relégués
. Maturette and Clousiot put them on; I stayed in the Arab’s clothes. We drank some rum. It was the second bottle since our departure. It warmed us. Mosquitoes attacked without mercy, forcing us to sacrifice a packet of tobacco. We put it to soak in a water bottle and spread the nicotine juice on our faces, hands and feet. The wool sweaters kept us warm in the penetrating damp.

L’Enflé said, “We’re off. What about the thousand francs you promised?” I went off for a moment and returned with a brand-new thousand-franc bill.

“So long. Don’t move from here for eight days,” Jésus said. “We’ll be back on the seventh. On the eighth you go out to sea. While you’re waiting, make your sail, your jib, and get the boat ready. Put everything in its place, fix the pins in the rudder and mount it on the rear. If we haven’t come after ten days, we’ve been arrested. There’ll be bloody hell to pay because you attacked those guards.”

Then Clousiot told us that he hadn’t left his carbine at the base of the wall. He had thrown it over the wall and the river was so near—which he didn’t know then—that it must have fallen into the water. Jésus said that was a good thing, for if it weren’t found, the man hunters would think we were armed. Now we could relax a little: they were armed only with revolvers and machetes, and if they thought we had a carbine, they wouldn’t go out of their way to find us. Well, so long. If we were discovered and had to abandon the boat, we were to follow the creek upstream until we hit dry land. Then, with the compass, we should keep going north. There was a good chance that after two or three days we’d come to the death camp called Charvein. Once there, we’d have to bribe someone to tell Jésus where we were.

The two old cons left. A few minutes later their dugout had disappeared. We could hear nothing, see nothing.

Daylight penetrated the brush in a very peculiar way. It was as if we were in an arcade where the sun reached the top but allowed no rays to filter down. It began to get hot. And there we were, alone: Maturette, Clousiot and me. Our first reflex was to laugh—it had gone like clockwork. The only inconvenience was Clousiot’s leg. But he said that with the strips of wood around it he was okay. He would like it if we made some coffee. It was quickly done. We made a fire and each drank a mug of black coffee sweetened with brown sugar. It was delicious. We had spent so much energy since the night before that I didn’t have the strength to examine our equipment or inspect the boat. That could come later. We were free, free, free. We had arrived at the
bagne
exactly thirty-seven days before. If the
cavale
succeeded, my life sentence would not have been very long. I said, “Mr. President, how long does hard labor for life last in France?” and I burst out laughing. Maturette, who also had a life sentence, did too. Clousiot said, “Don’t crow yet. Colombia is still far away, and this boat doesn’t look all that seaworthy to me.”

I didn’t answer because up to the last minute I had thought this boat was only to bring us to where the real one was. When I discovered that I was wrong, I didn’t dare say anything for fear of upsetting my friends. And also, since Jésus seemed to think it was perfectly normal, I didn’t want to give the impression that I didn’t know the kind of boats normally used for escapes.

We spent the first day talking and getting acquainted with this new unknown, the bush. Monkeys and a small species of squirrel made terrifying somersaults over our heads. A troop of small wild pigs came to drink and bathe in the creek. There must have been at least two thousand of them. They came down to the creek and swam, tearing at the hanging roots. An alligator emerged from God knows where and caught one of them by the foot. The pig started to squeal like a lost soul, and the other pigs attacked the alligator, climbing on top of him and trying to bite him at the corners of his enormous mouth. With each whack of his tail the alligator sent a pig flying. One of them was killed and floated on the surface with its belly in the air. His companions immediately set to eating him. The creek was full of blood. The spectacle lasted twenty minutes, until the alligator took off through the water. We never saw him again.

We slept soundly and in the morning made some coffee. I took off my sweater and washed with a big cake of Marseilles soap I found in the boat. Maturette gave me a rough shave with my lancet, then shaved Clousiot. Maturette himself had no beard. When I picked up my sweater to put it back on, an enormous violet-black spider fell from it. It was covered with very long hair which had tiny platinum-like balls at the ends. It must have weighed at least a pound; I crushed it in disgust.

We emptied everything out of the boat, including the barrel of water. The water was purple; Jésus must have put too much permanganate in it to keep it from going bad. We found matches and a striking pad in tightly closed bottles. The compass was no better than a child’s; it showed only north, south, east and west, with nothing in between. Since the mast was only two and a half yards high, we sewed the flour sacks into a trapeze shape with a rope around the edges for reinforcement. I made a small jib shaped like an isosceles triangle. It would help to keep us pointed into the wind.

When we were ready to mount the mast, I saw that the bottom of the boat wasn’t solid: the hole for the mast was completely eaten away. When I inserted the screws for the pin that was to support the rudder, they went right through—the wood was like butter. The boat was rotten. That son of a bitch, Jésus, was sending us to our deaths. Reluctantly I asked the others to take a look; I had no right to hide it from them. What should we do? When Jésus returned, we’d make him find us a better boat. We would disarm him; then I, armed with the knife and the hatchet, would go with him to the village to find another boat. It was taking a big risk, but it wasn’t as bad as putting to sea in this coffin. At least we had enough food: a large bottle of oil and boxes of flour and tapioca. With that we could go a long way.

This morning we watched a strange spectacle: a band of gray-faced monkeys staged a battle with some hairy black-faced monkeys. While the fight was raging, Maturette was hit on the head with a piece of branch and got a bump as big as a nut.

We had now been here five days and four nights. Tonight it rained in torrents. We made a shelter of wild banana leaves. The water rolled right off their varnished surface and we stayed dry except for our feet. This morning, as I drank my coffee, I thought about Jésus and what a crook he was. To take advantage of our innocence by giving us this punky boat! For five hundred or a thousand francs, he would send three men to certain death. I wondered if, after I’d made him give us another boat, I shouldn’t kill him.