Papillon

by Henri Charrière

  Two days later the wagon was repaired by the men in the shop, and Brutus, with his wife Marguerite at his side, resumed his daily carting of sea water. When we arrived at his resting place, and I anchored the wagon with the rock, I’d say, “Where’s Danton, Brutus?” And that mastodon would free the wagon with one tug and, with the joyful step of the victor, finish the trip in a single bound.

  REVOLT AT SAINT-JOSEPH

  The islands were dangerous because of the false sense of security we enjoyed. I suffered at the sight of all those people settled into their comfortable lives. Some waited for the end of their sentences, others just indulged their vices.

  One night I was stretched out on my hammock. At the back of the room a wild game was going on, so wild that Carbonieri and Grandet had to double up to run it. One man wasn’t enough. I was out of it, trying to summon a few memories. But they wouldn’t come; it was as if the Assizes had never existed. For all my efforts to focus the misty pictures of that fatal day, the only one I could see clearly was the prosecutor in all his cruel righteousness. Goddamn it, I really thought I’d beaten you when I arrived at Bowen’s on Trinidad. You son of a bitch, what kind of evil eye did you put on me to make six cavales go sour …?

  As I was talking to my accuser, two men approached my hammock.

  “You asleep?”

  “No.”

  “We’d like to talk to you.”

  “O.K. Talk. If you’re quiet, no one will hear you.”

  “Well, we’re preparing a revolt.”

  “What’s your plan?”

  “We’re going to kill all the Arabs, all the guards, all the guards’ wives, and their kids. They’re all rotten. Me, Arnaud, my friend Hautin and four other guys who are in on this are going to attack the warden’s arms depot. I have a job there taking care of the weapons. There are twenty-three submachine guns and over eighty rifles and carbines. We’ll begin the action—”

  “Stop. You don’t need to go on. I refuse. Thanks for your trust in me, but I won’t go along.”

  “We thought you might take the lead. Let me fill in the details for you; we’ve studied everything carefully and we can’t fail. We’ve been preparing this for five months. There are over fifty men with us.”

  “Don’t tell me the names. I refuse to be the leader or even be involved.”

  “Why? You owe us an explanation after we’ve trusted you with our plan.”

  “I didn’t ask you to tell me anything. Besides, I do only what I want to do, not what others want me to do. I’m not an assembly-line killer. I might kill somebody who had done something really bad to me, but not women and children who have done nothing. What’s worse, and since you don’t see it, I’ll have to point it out to you: even if your revolt succeeds, you will fail in the end.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you won’t accomplish your main goal; you won’t escape. Let’s say a hundred take part in the revolt. How are they going to get off the island? There are only two boats here. Together they can carry at the most forty cons. What will you do with the other sixty?”

  “We’ll be among the forty who leave on the boats.”

  “That’s what you think. But the others are no stupider than you. They’ll be armed, too, and once you’ve eliminated all those you say you’re going to eliminate, you’ll be shooting each other to see who’s going to get on the boats. And besides, no country is going to allow either boat to land. Telegrams will have gone out to every country you might try. Especially with all those dead left behind. No matter where you go you’ll be arrested and returned to French authorities. I’m back from Colombia and I know what I’m talking about. I swear to you that after a business like that, nobody will keep you.”

  “O.K., then, you refuse?”

  “Yes.”

  “This is your final word?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, we’d better go.”

  “One minute. Don’t mention this to any of my friends.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I can tell you beforehand they’ll refuse. Save your breath.”

  “O.K.”

  “You can’t put a stop to this project?”

  “Frankly, Papillon, no.”

  “I don’t understand what you’re after. Seriously, as I said before, even if your revolt succeeds, you won’t get your freedom.”

  “What we really want is revenge. And since you tell us that no country will accept us, well, we’ll take to the bush, live as a group in the forest.”

  “I promise I won’t speak of this even to my best friend.”

  “We know we can count on you.”

  “Good. And one last thing—give me eight days’ warning so I can go to Saint-Joseph. I don’t want to be on Royale when this takes place.”

  “We’ll give you time enough to change islands.”

  “You’re sure I can’t make you change your minds? Would you try another scheme with me? For instance, we could steal four rifles and attack the sentry who guards the boats at night. Without killing anybody, we could take a boat and leave.”

  “No. We’ve been through too much. The most important thing for us is revenge, even if we pay with our lives.”

  “All right. I don’t want to talk about it any more.”

  “You don’t want to wish us luck?”

  “No. I repeat, give it up. There are better things to do than a half-assed scheme like this one.”

  “You don’t agree we have the right to get even?”

  “Sure, but not by killing innocent people.”

  “Good night.”

  “Good night. We’ll pretend we haven’t discussed it, all right, Papi?”

  “All right, mecs.”

  Hautin and Arnaud went away. Jesus, how about that? What a pair of nuts! Already fifty or sixty men were involved, and at H hour there’d be a hundred. It was just plain crazy. None of my friends had spoken to me about it, so those two cons must have discussed it only with the squares. No man from the real underworld would get mixed up in a thing like that. And what made it worse, the squares were butchers. The ones like us were murderers, a different thing entirely.

  I made some discreet inquiries about Arnaud and Hautin. Arnaud had been indicted, unjustly, it would seem, and condemned to life for something that wasn’t worth ten years. The jury gave it to him because, the year before, his brother had been guillotined for murdering a cop. The prosecuting attorney had concentrated on the brother in order to create a hostile atmosphere. He was probably tortured at the time of his arrest, besides, all because of what his brother had done.

  Hautin had never known freedom. He’d been in prison since the age of nine. At nineteen he had killed a guy just before he was due to get out of the reformatory, on the eve of joining up with the Navy. He was out of his mind: he was planning to get to Venezuela and work in a gold mine where he planned to blow off his leg in order to get a big compensation. The leg was already stiff from some injections he had cadged at Saint-Martin-de-Ré.

  This morning there was a minor sensation. At roll call they called up Arnaud, Hautin and my friend Matthieu Carbonieri’s brother. Jean was a baker down on the quay and had access to the boats.

  They were sent to Saint-Joseph with no explanation. I tried to find out why, but in vain. Arnaud had been taking care of the weapons for four years, and Jean Carbonieri had been a baker for five. It couldn’t be just a coincidence. There must have been a leak, but what kind of leak, and how far had it gone?

  I decided to ask my three best friends—Matthieu, Grandet and Galgani. None of them knew anything. Just as I had thought, Hautin and Arnaud had involved only cons who weren’t of the underworld.

  “Why did they talk to me then?”

  “Because everybody knows you’ll escape at any price.”

  “But not at that price.”

  “They couldn’t see the difference.”

  “What about your brother Jean?”

  “God knows why he was such a fool to get mixed
up in a business like that.”

  “Maybe the man who ratted said he was in it when he wasn’t in it at all.”

  After that things moved fast. That night someone killed Girasolo as he was going to the toilets. They found blood on the Martinican’s shirt. Fifteen days later, after a too-speedy interrogation and the testimony of another black in solitary, the herdsman was condemned to death by a special tribunal.

  An old con named Garvel came to see me in the washhouse. “Papi, I killed Girasolo. I’d like to save the black, but I’m scared of the guillotine. That’s too high a price to pay. If I could find some way of getting only three or five years, I’d confess.”

  “What’s your sentence now?”

  “Twenty years.”

  “How many have you done?”

  “Twelve.”

  “Find some way to get life. That way you won’t have to go to Réclusion.”

  “How do I do it?”

  “Let me think about it. I’ll tell you tonight.”

  That night I said to Garvel, “No, you can’t get yourself accused and then confess.”

  “Why not?”

  “You run the risk of the death penalty. The only way to avoid solitary is to get life. So you make your confession—say you couldn’t in good conscience see an innocent man guillotined. Pick a Corsican guard to defend you. I’ll tell you who later. But you’ve got to work fast. I just hope they don’t cut the black’s head off too soon. You’ll have to wait at least two or three days.”

  I talked it over with a guard named Collona and he gave me a great idea: I was to take Garvel before the head warden and tell him that he had asked me to take on his defense, that I had promised to go with him while he made his confession and had guaranteed him that this noble act would make it impossible for him to get the death penalty, but that I had also warned him that his crime was very serious nonetheless, and he must expect life imprisonment at the very least.

  The plan worked. Garvel saved the black, who was freed straight off. His false accuser found himself with a year in prison, and Robert Garvel got life.

  Two months passed. Garvel told me all that had happened now that the affair was over. It seems that Girasolo had agreed to take part in the revolt and, after having been given all the details, had squealed on Arnaud, Hautin and Jean Carbonieri. Fortunately these were the only names he knew.

  The accusation was so serious that, at first, the guards wouldn’t believe it. But, to be on the safe side, they sent the three cons to Saint-Joseph—without a word, no questions, no nothing.

  “What motive did you give for the murder, Garvel?”

  “That he had stolen my plan. I said I slept opposite him—which was a fact—and that I took out my plan at night and hid it in the blanket I used as a pillow. One night I went to the toilet, and when I got back, my plan was gone. Now, in my area, only one man wasn’t asleep and that was Girasolo. The guards believed me; they didn’t even mention that he had squealed on the revolt.”

  “Papillon! Papillon!” somebody shouted from the yard. “Roll call!”

  “Present.”

  “Get your gear together. You’re going to Saint-Joseph.”

  “Oh, shit!”

  War had broken out in France and had brought with it a new disciplinary measure: any officials in the penal service who allowed an escape were to be dismissed. Any cons arrested attempting an escape were to be condemned to death. It would be considered as motivated by a desire to join the Free French forces, who were traitors to the motherland. Anything was tolerated except escape.

  Warden Prouillet had been gone two months. I didn’t know the new man, so nothing doing there. I said good-by to my friends. At eight o’clock I was on the boat to Saint-Joseph.

  Lisette’s father was no longer at the camp on Saint-Joseph. He and his family had left for Cayenne the week before. The warden now was named Dutain and came from Le Havre. He met me at the dock.

  “You’re Papillon?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You’re a curious fellow,” he said, leafing through my papers.

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because on the one hand it says here you’re extremely dangerous, with a note in red ink added: ‘Always preparing to escape.’ On the other hand, there’s a footnote: ‘Surrounded by sharks, attempted to rescue daughter of warden of Saint-Joseph.’ I happen to have two small daughters, Papillon. Would you like to meet them?”

  He called to two very blond children of about three and five who were entering his office in the company of a young Arab dressed in white and a very pretty, dark-haired woman.

  “Darling, this is the man who tried to rescue your goddaughter, Lisette.”

  “Oh, let me shake your hand!” the young woman said.

  To shake a bagnard’s hand is the greatest honor anyone can give him. You never put out your hand to a con. Her spontaneous gesture touched me.

  “I’m Lisette’s godmother. We’re very good friends with the Grandoits. What are you going to do for him, dear?”

  “He has to go to the camp first.” He turned to me. “Then you must tell me what job you want.”

  “Thank you, sir. Thank you, madame. But could you tell me why I’ve been sent to Saint-Joseph? For me it’s a kind of punishment, you know.”

  “There’s no particular reason, so far as I know. The new warden on Royale is afraid you’ll escape.”

  “He’s right there.”

  “They’ve increased the penalties for those who allow escapes. Before the war you were liable to lose a stripe. Now you lose it automatically, and that’s the least of it. He’d rather you escaped from Saint-Joseph, which is not his responsibility, than from Royale, which is.”

  “How much longer will you be here, Warden?”

  “Eighteen months.”

  “I can’t wait that long. But I’ll find some way to get back to Royale so it won’t be held against you.”

  “Thank you,” his wife said. “That’s very noble of you. If you need anything, count on us. Papa, give the guardroom orders that Papillon is to come and see me whenever he likes.”

  “All right, dear. Papillon, Mohamed will take you to the camp and you can pick out the case you want to be assigned to.”

  “No problem there. I want to be in with the dangerous cons.”

  “That isn’t difficult,” the warden said, laughing. He made out a slip and gave it to Mohamed.

  I left the house on the quay which doubled as the warden’s house and his office—Lisette’s former home—and walked to the camp with the young Arab.

  The man in charge of the guardroom was a violent old Corsican, a well-known killer. His name was Filisarri.

  “So, Papillon, you’re back. You know how I am, all good or all bad. Don’t try any escape stuff with me, for if you fail, I’ll kill you like a rabbit. I retire in two years and I don’t want any trouble now.”

  “You know that all Corsicans are my friends. I’m not going to tell you that I won’t try to escape, but if I do, I’ll make sure it’s when you’re not on duty.”

  “It’s all right, then, Papillon. We won’t be enemies. You understand, the young guards are in a better position to take the flak that follows an escape. For me it’s murder. At my age and just when I’m about to retire.... O.K. You understand. Now go to the building you’ve been assigned to.”

  There I was in a building exactly like the one on Royale with room for a hundred to a hundred and twenty cons. Pierrot le Fou was there, and also Hautin, Arnaud and Jean Carbonieri. Logically I should have made gourbi with Jean since he was Matthieu’s brother. But Jean wasn’t in the same class with Matthieu and, besides, I didn’t like his friendship with Hautin and Arnaud. So I gave him a wide berth and settled next to Carrier, otherwise known as Pierrot le Fou.

  The island of Saint-Joseph was wilder than Royale and, although really smaller, looked bigger because of its length. The camp was halfway to the top of the island, which had two plateaus, one above the other. On th
e lower level was the camp; on the higher level, the Réclusion.

  Every day at noon the Arab who worked for the warden’s family brought me three bowls on an iron platter and took away those he had left the day before. Every day Lisette’s godmother sent me the exact same food she prepared for her own family.

  I went to see her on Sunday to thank her. I spent the afternoon talking to her and playing with the little girls. As I stroked those blond heads, I was reminded of how hard it was to know where one’s duty lay. A terrible danger threatened that family if those madmen held to their plan. The guards had put so little trust in Girasolo’s accusation that they hadn’t even bothered to separate Arnaud, Hautin and Carbonieri. If I were even to hint that they should, I’d be confirming the truth about the revolt. What would the guards’ reaction be then? Better keep my mouth shut.

  Arnaud and Hautin barely spoke to me. It was best that way: we were polite but not friendly. Jean Carbonieri didn’t speak to me at all. He was angry that I hadn’t made gourbi with him. There were four in our gourbi: Pierrot le Fou, Marquetti—who twice won the Prix de Rome for violin and often played for hours on end, which depressed me—and Marsori, a Corsican from Sète.

  I didn’t speak of it, but I had the impression that no one here knew about the abortive revolt on Royale. Had they changed their plans? Theirs was one of the worst jobs on the island: they had to pull, or rather haul, huge rocks that were being used to make a swimming pool in the sea. Chains were wound around the rocks to which another chain fifteen to twenty yards long was attached. Two cons wearing harnesses around their chests and shoulders stood on either side and inserted a long hook into one of the chain links. Then, like dumb beasts, they hauled the rock to its destination. In the hot sun this was hard work and terribly wearing.

  One day we were sitting around when suddenly there was the crack of gunfire—rifles, carbines, revolvers—all going off together down by the quay. Christ! Those madmen were going through with it! What was happening? Who was winning? I sat in the room and didn’t move. Everybody agreed, “It’s a revolt!”