Papillon (17 page)

Two days before we were to leave, Mr. Bowen came to ask if, as a favor to the chief of police, we would take with us three
relégués
arrested the week before. They had been left on the island by their companions who had gone on to Venezuela, or so they said. I didn’t like the idea, but we’d been too well treated to say no. I asked if I could meet these cons before giving my final answer. A police car came for me and I went in to speak to the chief. He turned out to be the officer who had interrogated us at the time of our arrival. Sergeant Willy acted as interpreter.

“We wonder if you would do us a favor.”

“If it’s at all possible, with pleasure.”

“We have three French
relégués
in prison here. They claim that their companions abandoned them here and left. We think they sank their boat, but they say they don’t even know how to sail. We think they’re trying to put something over on us so that we’ll give them a new boat. They have to go, but I don’t want to have to turn them over to the first French ship that comes along.”

“Chief, I’ll do it, but I want to speak to them first. You must realize that it’s dangerous to take on three total strangers.”

“I understand. Willy, bring the three Frenchmen into the prison yard.”

I wanted to see them alone, so I asked the sergeant to leave.

“You’re
relégués
?”

“No, we’re
bagnards
.”

“Why did you say you were
relégués
?”

“We hoped we’d get better treatment if they thought we’d committed several small crimes instead of one big one. I guess we were wrong. What are you?”

“A
bagnard
.”

“I don’t recognize you.”

“I came on the last convoy. Look, the chief of police called me to ask if I’d take you three on our boat. There are three of us already. He said that if I wouldn’t take you, he’d have to put you on the first French boat that came along. What do you say?”

“We have reasons for not wanting to go to sea again. Couldn’t we pretend to leave with you, then you leave us off on the end of the island and go on your way?”

“No, I can’t do that.”

“Why not?”

“Because that’s a stinking way to pay back their kindness.”

“You should think of us cons before you think of the ‘roast-beefs.’”

“Why?”

“Because you’re a con yourself.”

“That may be, but there are a lot of different kinds of cons and maybe there’s more difference between you and me than between me and the ‘roast-beefs.’ It depends on how you look at it.”

“So you’re going to let them turn us over to the French authorities?”

“No. But I’m not going to let you off before we get to Curaçao either.”

“I can’t face starting out all over again,” one of them said.

“Listen, take a look at the boat first. Maybe you just had a bad boat.”

“O.K. We’ll give it a try.”

“All right. I’ll ask the chief to let you look at the boat.”

Together with Sergeant Willy, we went over to the port. The three
mecs
seemed to have more confidence once they saw the boat.

We set sail two days later, we three and the three strangers. I don’t know how they had got wind of it, but a dozen girls from the bars came to see us off, along with the Bowen family and the Salvation Army captain. As one of the girls was giving me a farewell kiss, Margaret laughed and said, “Henri, you’re a fast worker!”

“Good-by, everybody. If we don’t see you again, remember you have a big place in our hearts. We’ll never forget you.”

At four in the afternoon we were towed away from the quay. We were out of the port in no time and watched to the last moment the group that had come to see us off. They were now waving white handkerchiefs. The wind filled our sails, the towrope was dropped, and we breasted the first of the million waves that lay between us and our destination.

There were two knives on board, mine and Maturette’s. The hatchet was near Clousiot and so was the machete. We were certain that none of the others was armed, but all the same we arranged things so that at least two of us would always be awake. About sunset the school ship appeared and kept us company for nearly half an hour. Then it saluted and moved off.

“What’s your name?”

“Leroux.”

“Which convoy?”

“’Twenty-seven.”

“Your sentence?”

“Twenty years.”

“What’s yours?”

“Kargueret, ’twenty-nine convoy. I’m a Breton.”

“You’re a Breton and you don’t know how to sail a boat!”

“My name is Dufils. I’m from Angers. I got life because I said something stupid in court. If it hadn’t been for that, I’d have got ten years maximum. I was in the ’twenty-nine convoy.”

“What was it you said?”

“Well, it was like this. I killed my wife with a flatiron. During my trial one of the jury asked me why I hit her with the iron. I don’t know why, but I said I killed her with the iron because she was a bad ironer. My lawyer said it was that stupid remark that got me my heavy sentence.”

“Where did you escape from?”

“Cascade—the forest camp about fifty miles from Saint-Laurent. It was easy to escape from because we had a lot of freedom. There were five of us and it was a cinch.”

“What do you mean, five? Where are the other two?”

There was an embarrassed silence.

Clousiot said at last, “Look,
mecs
, we’re all in this together. We’ve got a right to know.”

“I’ll tell you,” the Breton began. “Like he said, there were five of us when we left. But the two missing men—they were from Cannes—told us they were fishermen. They paid nothing toward the
cavale
, but they said they would make up for it by helping us sail the boat. Well, when we were under way, we saw that neither of them knew a damn thing about sailing a boat. We almost drowned twenty times. We hugged the coast, first Dutch Guiana, then British Guiana, then finally Trinidad. Between Georgetown and Trinidad I killed the one who said he could run the boat. And the
mec
deserved what he got—he didn’t pay his share and he lied about what a good sailor he was. The other one thought he was going to be killed, too, so in the middle of a storm he dropped the tiller and jumped overboard. We did the best we could; the boat almost sank several times, we cracked up on a rock, but somehow pulled through. I swear that’s the truth and nothing but the truth.”

“That’s right,” the other two said. “That’s the way it happened. We all agreed the
mec
should be killed. What do you think, Papillon?”

“I’m in no position to judge.”

The Breton insisted. “But what would you have done?”

“I’ll have to think about it. To really know, you’d have to be there. Otherwise you can’t tell what’s right.”

Clousiot said, “I’d have killed him. His lie could have cost everybody’s life.”

“O.K. Let’s not talk about it any more. But I get the impression you’re still scared. You’re back at sea only because they made you go, right?”

“Right,” they answered together.

“All right then. But nobody panics here no matter what. At least, don’t let on you’re scared. If you are, shut up about it. This is a good boat; it’s proved itself. We have a heavier load, but the gunwales are six inches higher. That pretty well takes care of the extra load.”

We smoked and drank some coffee. We had had a good meal before leaving and decided we wouldn’t eat again until the next day.

Clousiot, our official recorder, informed us that it was now forty-two days since we launched our
cavale
from our room at the Saint-Laurent hospital. Since then I had gained three precious possessions: a waterproof steel watch purchased in Trinidad, a very precise compass in a double suspension box and a pair of dark glasses with plastic lenses. Clousiot and Maturette each had a sailor’s cap.

The first three days were without incident except for two meetings with schools of dolphins. A group of eight of them took it into their heads to play games with the boat; we all broke into a cold sweat. First they passed under the boat lengthwise, coming up just in front of the bow, sometimes grazing it. In another game three dolphins deployed themselves in a triangle, one in front and two in parallel positions behind. They would come at us with furious speed and just when they were almost on top of us, they would dive under the boat and come up on the opposite side. We had a strong wind and were tearing ahead under full sail, but they went even faster. The game lasted for hours; we were mesmerized. The three newcomers said nothing, but you should have seen their faces!

In the middle of the fourth night we were hit by a tremendous storm. It was terrifying. The waves ran in all directions, colliding every which way, some deep, others short. We didn’t speak. Only Clousiot occasionally let out a “Go to it, pal! Get that one like you got the others!”, or “Look out behind!” Every so often the waves came roaring from three directions at once, their crests exploding with spray. I’d figure out their speed and carefully anticipate the angle of attack. Then, as if from nowhere, a wave would stand us straight up and smack us on the ass. Several times the waves broke over my shoulders and flooded the boat. All five men would grab cooking pots and empty cans and bail like mad. But in spite of the heavy seas, the boat never filled more than a quarter way up and at no time were we in actual danger of sinking. This three-ring circus lasted half the night—almost seven hours. Because of the rain we couldn’t see a thing, and the sun didn’t break through until eight in the morning.

We greeted the storm’s end, the return of the sun and the start of a new day with joy. To celebrate we must have coffee! We made some Nestlé café-au-lait boiling hot and drank it with hardtack as tough as iron but delicious when dunked in coffee. The night’s struggle against the storm had exhausted me, and even though the wind was still strong and the waves high and unruly, I asked Maturette to take the tiller. I had to sleep. I wasn’t down ten minutes when Maturette took a wave broadside and the boat filled three-quarters full. Everything was afloat—tin cans, stove, blankets.... I woke up with water up to my stomach, and was just able to grab the tiller before another wave broke over us. With one tug I turned our stern toward the wave—the impact pushed us a good thirty feet.

Everybody set to bailing. Maturette manned the big pot, which held four gallons. Nobody tried to save anything. We had only one idea: to bail, to bail as fast as possible, because the great weight of the boat made it difficult to fight the waves. I had to admit that the newcomers conducted themselves very well: when the Breton saw his suitcase carried off, he decided to further lighten the boat by cutting free the water barrel which he’d hung over the side. Two hours later we were dry, but we’d lost our blankets, the primus stove, our charcoal, fuel, and—voluntarily—our fresh water.

It was noon when I decided to change my pants and realized that my suitcase was gone, too, along with two of our three oilskins. All our tobacco was lost or wet, even the cigarette papers had disappeared in their watertight aluminum box, but in the very bottom of the boat we found two bottles of rum.

“Mecs,”
I said, “first a good slug of rum, then let’s open our box of reserves and see what’s left. There’s fruit juice. Good. We’ll ration it. Boxes of
petit-beurre
cookies: we’ll empty one and make a stove out of it. We can put the canned food in the bottom of the boat and use the crate for firewood. We’ve all had a good scare, but the danger’s over now. We have to pull ourselves together and get ready for what lies ahead. From here on, nobody’s to say: ‘I’m thirsty.’ Nobody’s to say: ‘I’m hungry.’ And nobody’s to say: ‘I wish I had a smoke.’ All right?”

“All right.”

Everybody understood, and mercifully the wind died down enough so that we could make a corned beef soup. A bowlful of that with dunked hardtack made a good warm lining for our stomachs, enough to last until the next day. Then each of us had a tiny portion of green tea. A carton of cigarettes turned up in the one undamaged case: twenty-four small packs of eight cigarettes each. My five companions decided that I should be the only one to smoke—it would help me stay awake. So that the others wouldn’t be jealous, Clousiot gave up lighting my cigarettes. He just lit the matches. Thanks to his tact, we didn’t have a single disagreeable moment.

We’d been gone six days and I hadn’t really slept yet. This evening the sea was a millpond, so I slept. I slept like the dead for nearly five hours. It was ten at night when I woke up. The sea was like glass. The others had already eaten; I found a can of polenta, which I ate with some smoked sausages. Delicious. The tea was almost cold, but so what. I smoked and waited for the wind. The night was thick with stars. The North Star shone with all its brilliance; only the Southern Cross outdid it. You could clearly make out the Great and Little Bear. There wasn’t a cloud and the full moon was already high in the sky. The Breton was in a bad mood: he had lost his jacket and was in shirt sleeves. I loaned him the oilskin. We moved into the seventh day.

“Well, we can’t be far from Curaçao now. Though we may have gone too far north. From here on I’m going due west so we don’t miss the Dutch Antilles. Otherwise we’re in trouble.”