Then, moving very fast, I caught the pot by the handles – it burnt but I didn’t drop it – and in one swing I flung all the boiling water into the provost’s face. He was so busy with Julot he never saw me coming. The big bastard uttered a hideous, tearing shriek. He had really copped it. There he was writhing on the ground, trying to tear off his three woollen vests, one after the other. When at last he got to the third his skin came off with it. It was a narrow-necked vest and as he ripped it off the skin of his chest, part of the skin of his neck and all on his cheek came too, sticking to the wool. His one eye had been scalded as well, and he was blind. At last he got up, hideous, oozing with blood, flayed; and Julot took advantage of it to give him a terrible kick right in the balls. The huge brute went down, vomiting and frothing at the mouth. He was finished. As for us, we lost nothing by waiting for what was coming to us. The two warders who had been watching this performance hadn’t the guts to tackle us. They sounded the alarm for reinforcements. They came in from all sides and the truncheon-blows rained down on us thick as hail. I had the luck to be knocked out very early, which prevented me from feeling much.
I woke up two storeys lower down, stark naked, in a flooded black-hole. Slowly I came to. I ran my hand all over my aching body. There were at least fourteen or fifteen lumps on my head. What was the time? I couldn’t tell. Down here there was neither night nor day: no light of any kind. I heard a knocking on the wall, a knocking that came from a great way off.
Thump, thump, thump, thump, thump. This knocking was how we communicated with each other. I had to knock twice if I wanted to answer. Knock: but what with? In the darkness I couldn’t make out anything I could use. Fists were no good – their blows were not sharp or distinct enough. I moved over to where I imagined the door was, for it was a little less dark over there. I came up hard against bars I had not seen. Reaching out in the darkness I came to understand that the cell was closed by a door about a yard from me, and that these bars I was touching prevented me from getting to it. This way, when anyone wants to go into a dangerous prisoner’s cell he is in no danger of being touched, because the prisoner is in a cage. You can talk to him, soak him, throw his food in and insult him without the least risk. But there’s this advantage – he can’t be hit without danger, because in order to hit him you have to open the bars.
From time to time the knocking was repeated. Who could it be that was calling me? The guy deserved to be answered, because he was running a diabolical risk if he was caught. As I moved about I very nearly came down on my face. I had trodden on something hard and round. I felt for it: a wooden spoon. I grabbed it and got ready to answer. I waited there, with my ear hard up against the wall. Thump, thump, thump, thump, pause: thump, thump. Thump-thump, I replied. These two knocks meant to the man the other end, Go ahead, I’m taking the call. The knocking began again: thump, thump, thump … The alphabet ran by quickly – a b c d e f g h i j k I m n o p: stop. He was stopping at the letter p. I struck one hard blow. Thump. So he knew I had got the letter. Then came an a, a p, an i, and so on. He was saying, ‘Papi, you OK? You got it bad. I have a broken arm.’ It was Julot.
We talked to one another in this way for more than two hours without worrying about being caught. We were absolutely delighted, exchanging our messages. I told him I had nothing broken, that my head was covered with lumps, but that I was not wounded anywhere.
He had seen me going down, dragged by one foot, and he told me that at each stair my head had banged on the step before. He had never lost consciousness. He thought that Tribouillard had been very seriously scalded and that with the help of the wool the burns had gone deep – he was not going to get over it in a hurry.
Three very fast, repeated knocks told me there was something up. I stopped. And indeed a few moments later the door opened. There was a shout, ‘Get to the back, you sod! Get to the back of your cell and stand to attention.’ It was the new provost speaking. ‘Batton’s my name, my real name. I’ve got the name of the job, you see.’ He lit up the black-hole and my naked body with a big ship’s lantern. ‘Here’s something to put on. Don’t you stir from back there. Here’s some bread and water.4 Don’t stuff it all down at one go: you won’t get anything more for another twenty-four hours.’
He shouted at me like a brute and then he raised the lantern to his face. I saw he was smiling, but not wickedly. He laid a finger on his lips and pointed at the things he had left. There must have been a warder in the passage, but he wanted to make me understand he was not an enemy.
True enough, inside the hunk of bread I found a big piece of boiled meat and in the pocket of the trousers – Christ, what wealth! – a packet of cigarettes and a dry lighter – a tinder lighter with a bit of tinderwick in it. Presents like this were worth millions here. Two shirts instead of one, and woollen drawers that came down to my ankles. I’ll never forget him, that Batton. He was rewarding me for having wiped out Tribouillard. Before the dust-up he had only been assistant-provost. Now, thanks to me, he had risen to be the great man himself. In a word, he owed his promotion to me and he was showing his gratitude. And because we were safe with Batton, Julot and I sent one another telegrams all day long. I learnt from him that our departure for the penal settlement was no great way off – three or four months.
Two days later we were brought out of the punishment cells and taken up to the governor’s office, two warders to each of us. There were three men sitting there opposite the door, behind a table. It was a kind of court. The governor acted as president, and the deputy-governor and chief warders as assessors.
‘Ah-ha, my young friends, so here you are! What have you got to say?’
Julot was very white and his eyes were swollen: he certainly had a temperature. His arm had been broken three days ago, and he must have been in shocking pain. Quietly he said, ‘My arm’s broken.’
‘You asked for it. That’ll teach you to fly at people. You’ll see the doctor when he comes. I hope it will be within a week. The waiting will be good for you, because the pain will perhaps be a lesson. But you don’t think I’m going to send for a doctor especially for a fellow like you? You can just wait until the prison doctor has time to come, and he will look after you. But nevertheless I sentence you both to the black-hole until further orders.’
Julot looked full at me, right in the eye. He seemed to be saying, ‘This well-dressed gent disposes of other people’s lives very easily.’
I turned towards the governor again and looked at him. He thought I meant to speak. He said, ‘And what about you? The sentence doesn’t seem to be to your liking? Have you anything to say against it?’
I said, ‘Absolutely nothing, Monsieur le Directeur. The only thing I feel is an urge to spit in your eye; but I don’t like to do so, in case it should dirty my spit.’
He was taken aback, he reddened and for a moment he couldn’t grasp what I’d said. But the chief warder grasped it all right. He roared at the screws, ‘Take him out and look after him properly. I want to see him here again in an hour’s time, begging pardon on his hands and knees. We’ll tame him! I’ll make him polish my boots with his tongue, soles and all. Don’t be lenient with him – he’s all yours.’
Two warders twisted my right arm, two others my left. I was flat on my face with my hands right up against my shoulder-blades. They put on handcuffs with a thumb-piece, fixing my left forefinger to the thumb of my right hand, and the top warder picked me up by the hair like an animal.
There’s