Читать книгу Papillon - Анри Шарьер - Страница 14

The flood-tide would last six hours. Then there was the hour and a half to wait for the ebb. I should be able to sleep for seven hours, although I was very much on edge. I had to get some sleep, because once out at sea, when should I be able to lie down? I stretched out between the barrel and the mast; Maturette laid a blanket over the thwart and the barrel by way of a cover, and there in the shelter I slept and slept. Dreams, rain, cramped position – nothing disturbed that deep, heavy sleep.

I slept and slept until Maturette woke me. ‘Papi, we think it’s time, or just about. The ebb has been running a good while.’

The boat had turned towards the sea and under my fingers the current raced by. It was no longer raining, and by the light of a quarter moon we could distinctly see the river a hundred yards in front of us, carrying trees, vegetation and dark shapes upon its surface. I tried to distinguish the exact place where the sea and river met. Where we were lying there was no wind. Was there any out in the middle? Was it strong? We pushed out from under the bush, the boat still hitched to a big root. Looking at the sky I could just make out the coast, where the river ended and the sea began. We had run much farther down than we had thought, and it seemed to me that we were under six miles from the mouth. We had a stiff tot of rum. Should we step the mast now? Yes, said the others. It was up, very strongly held in its heel and the hole in the thwart. I hoisted the sail without unfurling it, keeping it tight to the mast. Maturette was ready to haul up the staysail and jib when I said. All that was needed to fill the sail was to cast loose the line holding it close to the mast, and I’d be able to do that from where I sat. Maturette had one paddle in the bows and I had another in the stern: we should have to shove out very strong and fast, for the current was pressing us tight against the bank.

‘Everybody ready. Shove away. In the name of God.’

‘In the name of God,’ repeated Clousiot.

‘Into Thy hands I entrust myself,’ said Maturette.

And we shoved. Both together we shoved on the water with our blades – I thrust deep and I pulled hard: so did Maturette. We got under way as easy as kiss my hand. We weren’t a stone’s throw from the bank before the tide had swept us down a good hundred yards. Suddenly there was the breeze, pushing us out towards the middle.

‘Hoist the staysail and jib – make all fast.’ They filled: the boat reared-like a horse and shot away. It must have been later than the time we’d planned, because all of a sudden the river was as light as though the sun was up. About a mile away on our right we could see the French bank clearly, and perhaps half a mile on the left, the Dutch. Right ahead, and perfectly distinct the white crests of the breaking ocean waves.

‘Christ, we got the time wrong,’ said Clousiot. ‘Do you think we’ll have long enough to get out?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Look how high the waves are, and how they break so white! Can the flood have started?’

‘Impossible. I can see things going down.’

Maturette said, ‘We shan’t be able to get out. We shan’t be there in time.’

‘You shut your bloody mouth and sit there by the jib and staysail sheets. You shut up too, Clousiot.’

Bang. Bang. Rifles, shooting at us. I distinctly spotted the second. It was not screws firing at all: the shots were coming from Dutch Guiana. I hoisted the mainsail and it filled with such strength that the sheet tearing at my wrist nearly had me in the water. The boat lay over at more than forty-five degrees. I bore away as fast as I could – it wasn’t hard, for there was wind and to spare. Bang, bang, bang, and then no more. We had run farther towards the French side than the Dutch, and that was certainly why the firing stopped.

We tore along at a blinding speed, with a wind fit to carry everything away. We were going so fast that we shot across the middle of the estuary, and I could see that in a few minutes’ time we should be right up against the French bank. I could see men running towards the shore. Gently, as gently as possible, I came about, heaving on the sheet with all my strength. We came up into the wind: the jib went over all by itself and so did the staysail. The boat turned, turned, I let go the sheet and we ran out of the river straight before the wind. Christ, we’d done it! It was over! Ten minutes later a sea-wave tried to stop us; we rode over it smooth and easy, and the shwit shwit that the boat had made in the river changed to thumpo-thumpo-thump. The waves were high, but we went over them as easy as a kid playing leap-frog. Thump-o-thump, the boat went up and down the slopes without a shake or a tremble, only that thud of her hull striking the water as it came down.

‘Hurray, hurray! We’re out!’ roared Clousiot with the full strength of his lungs.

And to light up our victory over the elements the Lord sent us an astonishing sunrise. The waves came in a steady rhythm. Their height grew less the farther we went from the shore. The water was filthy – full of mud. Over towards the north it looked black; but later on it was blue. I had no need to look at my compass: with the sun there on my right shoulder I steered straight ahead going large but with the boat lying over less, for I had slackened off the sheet until the sail was just drawing pleasantly. The great adventure had begun.

Clousiot heaved himself up. He wanted to get his head and shoulders out to see properly. Maturette came and gave him a hand, sitting him up there opposite me with his back against the barrel: he rolled me a cigarette, lit it and passed it. We all three of us smoked.

‘Give me the tafia,’ said Clousiot. ‘This crossing of the bar calls for a drink.’ Maturette poured an elegant tot into three tin mugs; we clinked and drank to one another. Maturette was sitting next to me on my left: we all looked at one another. Their faces were shining with happiness, and mine must have been the same. Then Clousiot said to me, ‘Captain, sir, where are you heading for, if you please?’

‘Colombia, if God permits.’

‘God will permit all right, Christ above!’ said Clousiot.

The sun rose fast and we dried out with no difficulty at all. I turned the hospital shirt into a kind of Arab burnous. Wetted, it kept my head cool and prevented sunstroke. The sea was an opal blue; the ten-foot waves were very wide apart, and that made sailing comfortable. The breeze was still strong and we moved fast away from the shore; from time to time I looked back and saw it fading on the horizon. The farther we ran from that vast green mass, the more we could make out the lie of the land. I was gazing back when a vague uneasiness called me to order and reminded me of my responsibility for my companions’ lives and my own.

‘I’ll cook some rice,’ said Maturette.

‘I’ll hold the stove and you hold the pot,’ said Clousiot.

The bottle of paraffin was made fast right up forward where no one was allowed to smoke. The fried rice smelt good. We ate it hot, with two tins of sardines stirred into it. On top of that we had a good cup of coffee. ‘Some rum?’ I refused: it was too hot. Besides, I was no drinker. Clousiot rolled me cigarette after cigarette and lit them for me. The first meal aboard had gone off well. Judging from the sun, we thought it was ten o’clock in the morning. We had had only five hours of running out to sea and yet you could already feel that the water beneath us was very deep. The waves were not so high now, and as we ran across them the boat no longer thumped. The weather was quite splendid. I realized that during daylight I should not have to be looking at the compass all the time. Now and then I fixed the sun in relation to the needle and I steered by that – it was very simple. The glare tired my eyes and I was sorry I had not thought to get myself a pair of dark glasses.

Out of the blue Clousiot said, ‘What luck I had, finding you in hospital!’

‘It was just as lucky for me – you’re not the only one.’ I thought of Dega and Fernandez … if they’d said yes, they would have been here with us.

‘That’s not so certain,’ said Clousiot. ‘But it might have been tricky for you to get the Arab into the ward just at the right moment.’

‘Yes, Maturette has been a great help to us. I’m very glad we brought him, he’s as reliable as they come, brave and clever.’

‘Thanks,’ said Maturette. ‘And thank you both for believing in me, although I’m so young and although I’m you know what. I’ll do my best not to let you down.’

Then after a while I said, ‘François Sierra too, the guy I’d so much wanted to have with us; and Galgani…’

‘As things turned out, Papillon, it just wasn’t on. If Jesus had been a decent type and if he had given us a decent boat, we could have lain up and waited for them – we could have waited for Jesus to get them out and bring them. Anyhow, they know you, and they know that if you didn’t send for them, it was on account of it just wasn’t possible.’

‘By the way, Maturette, how come you were in the high-security ward?’

‘I never knew I was to be interned. I reported sick because I had a sore throat and because I wanted the walk, and when the doctor saw me he said, “I see from your card that you’re for internment on the islands, Why?” “I don’t know anything about it, Doctor. What’s internment mean?” “All right. Never mind. Hospital for you.” And there I was: that’s all there was to it.’

‘He meant to do you a good turn,’ said Clousiot.

‘What on earth did the quack want, sending me to hospital? Now he must be saying “My angel-faced boy wasn’t such a wet after all, seeing he’s got out – he’s on the run”’

We talked and laughed. I said, ‘Who knows but we may come across Julot, the hammer-man. He’ll be far off by now, unless he’s still lying up in the bush.’ Clousiot said, ‘When I left I put a note under my pillow saying, “Gone without leaving an address”’ That made us roar with laughter.

Five days we sailed on with nothing happening. The east-west passage of the sun acted as my compass by day: by night I used the compass itself. On the morning of the sixth day we were greeted by a brilliant sun; the sea had suddenly calmed, and flying-fishes went by not far away. I was destroyed with fatigue. During the night Maturette had kept wiping my face with a wet cloth to keep me from sleeping; but even so I went off, and Clousiot had had to burn me with his cigarette. Now it was dead calm, so I decided to get some sleep. We lowered the mainsail and the jib, keeping just the staysail, and I slept like a log in the bottom of the boat, the sail spread to keep me from the sun.

I woke up with Maturette shaking me. He said, ‘It’s noon or one o’clock, but I’m waking you because the wind is getting stronger and on the horizon where it’s coming from, everything’s black.’ I got up and went to my post. The one sail we had set was carrying us over the unruffled sea. In the east, behind me, all was black, and the breeze was strengthening steadily. The staysail and the jib were enough to make the boat run very fast. I furled the mainsail against the mast, carefully, and made all tight. ‘Look out for yourselves, because what’s coming is a storm.’

Heavy drops began to fall on us. The darkness came rushing forwards at an astonishing speed, and in a quarter of an hour it had spread from the horizon almost as far as us. Now here it came: an incredibly strong wind drove straight at us. As if by magic the sea got up faster, waves with foaming white tops: the sun was wiped right out, rain poured down in torrents, we could see nothing, and as the seas hit the boat so they sent packets of water stinging into my face. It was a storm all right, my first storm, with all the terrific splendour of nature unrestrained – thunder, lightning, rain, waves, the howling of the wind over and all around us.

The boat was carried along like a straw; she climbed unbelievable heights and ran down into hollows so deep you felt she could never rise up again. Yet in spite of these astonishing depths she did climb up the side of the next wave, go over the crest, and so begin once more – right up and down again and again. I held the tiller with both hands; and once, when I saw an even bigger wave coming I thought I should steer a little against it. No doubt I moved too fast, because just as we cut it, I shipped a great deal of water. The whole boat was aswim. There must have been about three foot of water aboard. Without meaning to I wrenched the boat strongly across the next wave – a very dangerous thing to do – and she leant over so much, almost to the point of turning turtle, that she flung out most of the water we had shipped.

‘Bravo!’ cried Clousiot. ‘You’re a real expert, Papillon! You emptied her straight away.’

I said, ‘You see now how it’s done, don’t you?’

If only he’d known that my lack of experience had very nearly turned us upside down, right out in the open sea! I decided not to struggle against the thrust of the waves any more, not to worry about what course to steer, but just to keep the boat as steady as possible. I took the waves three-quarters on; I let the boat run down and rise just as the sea would have it. Very soon I realized that this was an important discovery and that I’d done away with ninety per cent of the danger. The rain stopped: the wind was still blowing furiously, but now I could see clearly in front and behind. Behind, the sky was clear; in front it was black. We were in the middle of the two.

By about five it was all over. The sun was shining on us again, the breeze was its usual self, the sea had gone down: I hoisted the mainsail and we set off once more, pleased with ourselves. We baled the boat with the saucepans and we brought out the blankets to dry them by hanging them to the mast. Rice, flour, oil and double-strength coffee: a comforting shot of rum. The sun was about to set, lighting up the blue sea and making an unforgettable picture – reddish-brown sky, great yellow rays leaping up from the half-sunk orb and lighting the sky, and the few white clouds, and the sea itself. As the waves rose they were blue at the bottom, then green; and their crests were red, pink or yellow, according to the colour of the rays that hit them.

I was filled with a wonderfully gentle peace; and together with the peace a feeling that I could rely upon myself. I had stuck it out pretty well; this short storm had been very valuable to me. All by myself I had learnt how to handle the boat in such circumstances. I’d look forward to the night with a completely easy mind.

‘So you saw how to empty a boat, Clousiot, did you? You saw how it was done?’

‘Listen, brother, if you hadn’t brought it off, and if another wave had caught us sideways, we’d have sunk. You’re all right.’

‘You learnt all that in the navy?’ said Maturette.

‘Yes. There’s something to be said for a naval training, after all.’

We must have made a great deal of leeway. Who could tell how far we had drifted during those four hours, with a wind and waves like that? I’d steer north-west to make it up: that’s what I’d do. The sun vanished into the sea, sending up the last flashes of its firework display – violet this time – and then at once it was night.

For six more days we sailed on with nothing to worry us except for a few squalls and showers – none ever lasted more than three hours and none were anything like that first everlasting storm.

Ten o’clock in the morning and not a breath of wind: a dead calm. I slept for nearly four hours. When I woke my lips were on fire. They had no skin left; nor had my nose either; and my right hand was quite 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.