‘Yes, without even an escort.’
‘Well, they must be a quaint lot, these rosbifs.’
Bowen had gone to see the doctor and now he came back with him. He said to Clousiot, ‘Who reduced the fracture for you, before splinting your leg?’
‘Me and another guy who’s not here.’
‘You did it so well there’s no need to break the leg again. The broken fibula was put back very neatly. We’ll just plaster it and give you an iron so that you can walk a little. Would you rather stay here or go with your friends?’
‘Go with them.’
‘Well, tomorrow you’ll be able to join them.’
We poured out our thanks. Mr. Bowen and the doctor left and we spent the rest of the morning and part of the afternoon with our friend. The next day we were delighted to find ourselves all together once more, the three of us in our hostel bedroom, with the window wide open and the fans going full blast to cool the air. We congratulated one another upon how fit we looked, and we said what fine fellows we were in our new clothes. When I saw the talk was going back over the past I said, ‘Now let’s forget the past as soon as possible and concentrate on the present and the future. Where shall we go? Colombia? Panama? Costa Rica? We ought to ask Bowen about the countries where we’re likely to be admitted.’
I called Bowen at his chambers: he wasn’t there. I called his house at San Fernando, and it was his daughter who answered. After some pleasant words she said, ‘Monsieur Henri, in the Fish Market near the hostel there are buses for San Fernando. Why don’t you come and spend the afternoon with us? Do come: I’ll be expecting you.’ And there we were, all three of us on the way to San Fernando. Clousiot was particularly splendid in his snuff-coloured semi-military uniform.
We were all three deeply moved by this return to the house that had taken us in with such kindness. It seemed as though the ladies understood our emotion, for both speaking together they said, ‘So here you are, home again! Sit yourselves down comfortably.’ And now, instead of saying Monsieur each time they spoke to us, they called us by our Christian names – ‘Henri, please may I have the sugar? André [Maturette’s name was André], a little more pudding?’
Mrs. Bowen and Miss Bowen, I hope that God has rewarded you for all the great kindness you showed us, and that your noble hearts – hearts that gave us so much joy – have never known anything but perfect happiness all your lives.
With a map spread out on the table, we asked their advice. The distances were very great: seven hundred and fifty miles to reach Santa Marta, the nearest Colombian port, thirteen hundred miles to Panama; one thousand four hundred and fifty to Costa Rica. Mr. Bowen came home. ‘I’ve telephoned all the consulates, and I’ve one piece of good news – you can stay a few days at Curaçao to rest. Colombia has no set rules about escaped prisoners. As far as the consul knows no one has ever reached Colombia by sea. Nor Panama nor anywhere else, either.’
‘I know a safe place for you,’ said Margaret, Mr. Bowen’s daughter. ‘But it’s a great way off – one thousand eight hundred miles at least.’
‘Where’s that?’ asked her father.
‘British Honduras. The governor is my godfather.’
I looked at my friends and said, ‘All aboard for British Honduras.’ It was a British possession with the Republic of Honduras on the south and Mexico on the north. Helped by Margaret and her mother we spent the afternoon working out the course. First leg, Trinidad to Curaçao, six hundred and twenty-five miles: second leg, Curaçao to some island or other on our route: third leg, British Honduras.
As you can never tell what will happen at sea, we decided that in addition to the stores the police would give us, we should have a special case of tinned things to fall back on – meat, vegetables, jam, fish, etc. Margaret told us that the Salvatori Supermarket would be delighted to make us a present of them. ‘And if they won’t,’ she said simply, ‘Mama and I will buy them for you.’
‘No, Mademoiselle.’
‘Hush, Henri.’
‘No, it’s really not possible, because we have money and it wouldn’t be right to profit by your kindness when we can perfectly well buy these stores ourselves.’
The boat was at Port of Spain, afloat in a Royal Navy dock. We left our friends, promising to see one another again before we finally sailed away. Every evening we went out punctually at eleven o’clock. Clousiot sat on a bench in the liveliest square and Maturette and I took it in turns to stay with him while the other wandered about the town. We had been here now for ten days. Thanks to the iron set in his plaster, Clousiot could walk without too much difficulty. We had learnt to get to the harbour by taking a tram. We often went in the afternoons and always at night. We were known and adopted in some of the bars down there. The police on guard saluted us and everybody knew who we were and where we came from, though there was never the slightest allusion to anything whatsoever. But we noticed that in the bars where we were known they charged us less for what we ate or drank than the sailors. It was the same with the tarts. Generally speaking, whenever they sat down at a table with sailors or officers or tourists they drank non-stop and always tried to make them spend as much as possible. In the bars where there was dancing, they would never dance with anyone unless he stood them a good many drinks first. But they all behaved quite differently with us. They would stay with us for quite a time and we had to press them before they’d drink anything at all: and then it wasn’t their notorious tiny glass, but a beer or a genuine whiskey and soda. All this pleased us very much, because it was an indirect way of saying that they knew how we were fixed and that they were on our side.
The boat had been repainted and the gunwale raised six inches. The keel had been strengthened. None of her ribs had suffered, and the boat was quite sound. The mast had been replaced by a longer but lighter spar, and the flour-sack jib and staysail by good ochre-coloured canvas. At the naval basin a captain gave me a fully-graduated compass and showed me how I could find roughly where I was by using the chart. Our course for Curaçao was marked out – west by north.
The captain introduced me to a naval officer in command of the training-ship Tarpon, and he asked me if I would be so good as to go to sea at about eight the next morning and run a little way out of the harbour. I did not understand why, but I promised to do so. I was at the basin next day at the appointed time, with Maturette. A sailor came aboard with us and I sailed out of the harbour with a fair wind. Two hours later, as we were tacking in and out of the port, a man-of-war came towards us. The officers and crew, all in white, were lined up on the deck. They went by close to us and shouted ‘Hurrah!’ They turned about and dipped their ensign twice. It was an official salute whose meaning I didn’t grasp. We went back to the naval basin, where the man-of-war was already tied up at the landing-stage. As for us, we moored alongside the quay. The sailor made signs to us to follow him; we went aboard and the captain of the ship welcomed us at the top of the gangway. The bosun’s pipe saluted our coming aboard, and when we had been introduced to the officers they led us past the cadets and petty-officers lined up and standing to attention. The captain said a few words to them in English and then they fell out. A young officer explained that the captain had just told the cadets we deserved a sailor’s respect for having made such a long voyage in that little boat; he also told them we were about to make an even longer and more dangerous trip. We thanked the officer for the honour we had been paid. He made us a present of three oilskins – they were very useful to us afterwards. They were black, and they fastened with a long zip: they had hoods.
Two days before we left, Mr. Bowen came to see us with a message from the police superintendent asking us to take three relégués with us – they had been picked up a week before. These relégués had been landed on the island and according to them their companions had gone on to Venezuela. I didn’t much care for the idea, but we had been treated too handsomely to be able to refuse to take the three men aboard. I asked to see them before giving my answer.