Papillon

I tried to force my mind to make pictures of the assizes, the jurymen, the prosecuting counsel, etc. It flatly refused to obey me, and I could only get it to produce ordinary images. It came to me that if you want to live through anything imaginary as vividly as I did at the Conciergerie or at Beaulieu you have to be alone, utterly alone. It was a relief to understand this, and I saw that the communal life that was coming would bring other needs with it, other reactions and other plans.

Pierrot le Fou came up to the bars and said, ‘OK, Papi?’

‘What about you?’

‘Well, as far as I’m concerned, I’d always dreamed of going to America; but I was a gambler, so I could never save enough for the trip. The cops had the idea of making me a present of it. You can’t deny it was kind of them, Papillon.’ He was speaking naturally. There was no bragging about what he said. You could feel that right down he was sure of himself. ‘The cops’ free trip to America has something to be said for it, you know. I’d much rather go to Guiana than sweat out fifteen years of solitary in France.’

‘As I see it going crazy in a cell or just falling apart in some solitary confinement hole in France is even worse than dying of leprosy or yellow fever.’

‘That’s how I see it too,’ he said.

‘Look, Pierrot, this label is yours.’

He bent down, looking very close to read it, and slowly he made out the words. ‘I can’t wait to put these clothes on. I’ve a mind to open the bag – no one will say anything. After all, they’re meant for me.’

‘You leave it alone and wait till they tell you. This isn’t the time to ask for trouble, Pierre. I need some peace and quiet.’ He grasped what I meant and moved away from the bars.

Louis Dega looked at me and said, ‘This is our last night, boy. Tomorrow they’re taking us far away from our beautiful country.’

‘Our beautiful country hasn’t got such a very beautiful system of justice, Dega. Maybe we’ll come to know countries that aren’t so beautiful but that have a slightly more human way of treating people who have slipped up.’ I didn’t think I was so near the truth: the future was to show me that I was dead right. Total silence fell again.

Leaving for Guiana

Six o’clock, and everything was in motion. Convicts came round with coffee and then four warders appeared. Today they were in white; they still carried their revolvers. Spotless white tunics and buttons that shone like gold. One had three gold chevrons on his left sleeve: nothing on his shoulders.

‘Transportees, come out into the corridor in twos. Each man will find the bag with his name on the label. Take the bag and move back against the wall, facing the corridor with your bag in front of you.’

It took twenty minutes before we were all lined up with our kitbags at our feet.

‘Strip: roll up your things, put them into the jacket, bundle it all up and tie the sleeves … right. You over there, pick up the rolls and put them into the cell. Now dress. Put on vest, drawers, striped drill trousers, drill jacket, shoes and socks … You’re all dressed?’

‘Yes, Monsieur le surveillant.’

‘Right. Keep the woollen jersey out of the bag in case it rains or turns cold. Bags on your left shoulder. In double file, follow me.’

With the sergeant in front, two warders at the sides and the fourth behind, our little column moved out to the courtyard. In under two hours eight hundred and ten convicts were lined up there. Forty men were called out, including Dega and me and the three who were being sent back after their escape – Julot, Galgani and Santini. These forty men were lined up in rows of ten. Each rank of the column that was taking shape had a warder beside it. No chains, no handcuffs. Three yards in front of us, walking backwards, ten gendarmes. They faced us, rifle in hand, and they marched like that all the way, each steered by another gendarme holding his shoulder-belt.

The great gate of the citadel opened, and slowly the column began to move. As the line emerged from the fortress so more gendarmes, carrying rifles or light machine-guns, joined the convoy, staying a couple of yards from it and keeping pace. Other gendarmes held back a huge crowd that had come to watch us leaving for the penal settlements. Half way to the quay I heard a quiet whistle from the windows of a house. I looked up and saw Nénette, my wife, and my friend Antoine D – at one window; Paula, Dega’s wife, and his friend Antoine Giletti were at the other. Dega saw them too, and we marched with our eyes fixed on those windows as long as we could see them. That was the last time I ever set eyes on my wife: or my friend Antoine, who died much later in an air-raid on Marseilles. No one spoke. There was a total silence. No prisoner, no warder, no gendarme, no person in the crowd disturbed that truly heart-rending moment when everyone knew that one thousand eight hundred men were about to vanish from ordinary life for ever.

We went aboard. The forty in front – that is to say us – were sent to the bottom of the hold, into a cage with thick bars. There was a marker on it. I read ‘Hall no. 1. 40 men top special category. Strict, continual surveillance.’ Each man was given a rolled-up hammock. There were quantities of rings to hang them by. Someone seized me in his arms: it was Julot. He knew all about this, because he had already made the voyage ten years before. He knew how to cope. He said, ‘This way, quick. Hang your bag where you’re going to hang your hammock. This place is near two closed port-holes, but they’ll be opened when we’re at sea, and we’ll be able to breathe better here than anywhere else in the cage.’

I introduced Dega. We were talking when a man came our way. Julot put out his arm and blocked the path. He said, ‘Never come over this side if you want to reach penal alive. Get it?’ ‘Yes,’ said the other man. ‘You know why?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Then bugger off.’ The guy went. Dega was delighted with this show of strength and he didn’t hide it. ‘With you two, I’ll be able to sleep easy.’ Julot said, ‘With us, you’re safer here than in any villa on the coast that has a single window open.’

The voyage lasted eighteen days. Only one piece of excitement. Everyone was woken by an enormous shriek in the night. A character was found dead with a long knife deep between his shoulders. The knife had been driven from below upwards and it had passed through the hammock before reaching him. A really dangerous weapon, a good eight inches long in the blade. Immediately twenty-five or thirty warders turned their revolvers or rifles on us, shouting, ‘Everyone strip. Double quick time!’

Everyone stripped. I saw there was going to be a search and I put my bare right foot over the scalpel, taking my weight on the left, because the blade was cutting into me. Nevertheless my foot covered the scalpel. Four warders came inside the cage and began rummaging through the shoes and clothes. Before they came in they left their weapons outside and the door was closed on them, but those who were the other side of the bars kept watch on us, keeping us covered. ‘The first man to stir is a goner,’ said a head screw’s voice. During the search they found three knives, two long roofing-nails, sharpened, a corkscrew, and a gold charger. Six men were brought out on to the deck, still naked. Major Barrot, the officer in command of the convoy, appeared together with two colonial army doctors and the captain of the ship. When the screws left our cage everyone dressed again, without waiting for the order. I picked up my scalpel.

The warders moved back to the far end of the deck. In the middle there was Barrot, just by the companion-way, with the other officers. The six naked men were lined up opposite them, standing to attention.

‘This is his,’ said the screw who had conducted the search, picking up a knife and pointing to its owner.

‘Fair enough. It’s mine.’

‘Right,’ said Barrot. ‘He’ll make the rest of the voyage in a cell over the engines.’

Each man was pointed out as responsible either for the nails, or the corkscrew or the knives, and each acknowledged that the weapon that had been found belonged to him. Each one, still naked, went up the ladder, accompanied by two screws. Lying there on the floor there was still one knife and the gold charger: and only one man for both of them. He was young – twenty-three or twenty-five – well-built, at least five foot ten, athletic, blue eyes.

‘This is yours, isn’t it?’ said the screw, holding out the gold charger.

‘Yes, it’s mine.’

‘What’s in it?’ asked Major Barrot, taking it.

‘Three hundred pounds sterling, two hundred dollars and two five-carat diamonds.’

‘Right. We’ll have a look.’ He opened it. The major was surrounded by other people and we couldn’t see a thing. But we heard him say, ‘Just so. What’s your name?’

‘Salvidia Romeo.’

‘You’re Italian?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘You’ll not be punished for the charger: but you will be for the knife.’

‘Excuse me, but the knife isn’t mine.’

‘Don’t talk balls,’ said the screw, ‘I found it in your shoe.’

‘I say again the knife isn’t mine.’

‘So I’m lying, am I?’

‘No, you’re just mistaken.’

‘Whose is the knife, then?’ asked Major Barrot. ‘If it’s not yours, it must be somebody’s.’

‘It’s not mine, that’s all.’

‘If you don’t want to be put in the punishment cell – and you’ll fry there, because it’s over the boiler – just tell me whose the knife is.’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Are you trying to make a fool of me? A knife’s found in your shoe and you don’t know whose it is? Do you think I’m a fool? Either it’s yours or you know whose it is. Speak up.’

‘It’s not mine and it’s not for me to say whose it is. I’m not an informer. You don’t by any chance think I look like a bleeding prison officer, do you?’

‘Warder, put on the handcuffs. This kind of undisciplined conduct costs a packet, my friend.’