Fairhaven High School - Huttlestonian Yearbook (Fairhaven, MA)

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THE HUTTLESTONI AN 11 ring about his ankle, while his head bobbed giddily about, finally coming to rest on the deck in so smashing a blow that he never regained conciousness. If Jean’s hope for any future ever hit a low ebb, it must have been when he gazed on the place where he was to exist for the next seven years. Sand was everywhere, spasmodically dotted with the straggling bush which hugged the ground. The torpid heat of the sun obscured the prison in a dusty haze, but through the filmy transparence that this offered might be seen the low bamboo huts in a barbed wire enclosure. Outside the wire were the homes of the officials. Guards dozed on upraised platforms shaded with thatched reeds. Trees were non-existant, the only thing which reached for the sky being the gallows in the center of the huts; and this quite often was the center of activity in the depressing community. A life of free action ended for Jean when he was spit upon the shore by the final launch from the ship that had brought him from his dear France. The convicts were marshaled before the prison doctor, slapped a few times in various parts of their anatomies out of formality as prescribed by some law, and declared fit for prison life. Two years later, Jean was again to come before this doctor under the most bizarre of circumstances. As I have stated, death was expected of all. The guards often placed bets on how long such and such a prisoner was going to last. It is not so long, for death stares one at every turn on the He Royale. Revolver shots from the warders lessen the roll call as do their lead tipped quirts which they use preferably to the firearm if the day is not too hot. Mosquitoes carry on a very effective anti-populist campaign. And, as if this were not enough, the convicts frequently kill one another. This last way of death may be pardoned. They work in couples, their feet bound together with a short iron chain. Each waits the moment when the other shall momentarily relax his guard, then a pick-axe or shovel will fall and an absent-minded convict will have accidentally met death.

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10 THE HUTTLESTONIAN But Monsieur Flambert was not a dragon. A milder man is hard to picture. He feared everyone from his dictatorial wife to his spoilt son of seven. As Minister of Education he plodded along the course of his predecessor, never once questioning the ability of the latter. Jean undertook to set the bed of this man afire while he slept, and thus rid France of this menace. Whether it was be¬ cause the young man was a novice at this sort of procedure, or whether there was an unfavorable draft is unknown; but the fire was unsuccessful. Jean, who broke his leg as he jumped from the bedroom window, was caught. Though the worthy Minister of Education was not even scorched, his nervous system had suffered a severe shock. Like all timid people who have been frightened, he shrieked that something be done about it. Was such a base attempt on the life of a public servant to go unpunished? Were young fanatics to be allowed to cavort about, setting fire to such sanctuaries as one’s own bed? No! Let the law be upheld! Upheld it was — emphatically so. Jean Giraudon was sentenced to seven years in French Guiana on the He Royale. For being twenty-two, impression¬ able, and flighty, he was condemned to die. Seven years on the He Royale is a synonym for death; French finesse, it is likely, is the reason for the usage of the longer phrase. Be as it may, Jean awoke in a stifling hold of a prison ship one day and heard the anchor rattle into the water. Despair had never entered his mind, even during the two days when breathing had seemed impossible, and two of his comrades had died from a cruel mingling of hunger, fear and inhuman abuse. Men that were sent into French Guiana need never be accounted for. That they were not dead within a short time was the fault of some perverse spark in their bodies which refused to be extinguished, and such stubbornness merited much punishment. The prisoners were jerked up the hatchway; and one un¬ fortunate fellow who stumbled was hauled up bodily by the

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12 THE HUTTLESTONI AN The guards never bear malice against the one at fault for cheating them of sport, and sometimes he is allowed to go single for a few weeks. It is generally with this liberty in mind, that prisoner kills prisoner — to feel just a little bit of ' la belle”, their word for liberty. The chief type of labor engaged in by the criminal is road building. It is the occupation which shows us the utter futility of their very existence. First of all, the road is never used because all commerce on the island is carried on in the bay when ships bring supplies and relief garrisons. Secondly, the road is never finished. Under a blazing sun, shackled to each other, beaten by uncomfortable guards, the builders, as is to be expected, can not work at any rate of speed worthy of mention. By the time they have completed a length of a mile, the part finished a fair period of time ago lies buried be¬ neath sand and scrub. Jean was healthy and strong and endured all this for a year without suffering as much as did his more disgruntled and embittered comrades. He was young, retained a s emblance of gaiety and never seemed to look upon the guards as his enemies — all of which established him in their favor. One in particular became fond of him: Jason Rasset. Rasset was a graduate of Jean’s college, and assistant to the doctor as well as bookkeeper for the colony. He was of Jean’s age, naturally sympathetic, and privately saddened by the plight of so fine a fellow. It was he who planted the seeds of escape in Jean’s ready mind. It was he who supplied the fertilizer and saw the seeds germinate into a fairly successful plant. I say fairly successful. There comes a time just before the convict sinks into a deadened lethargy from which he never returns, when he longs for release as during no other time. Two avenues present themselves as means of escape. Both are hideous and beyond the imagination of anyone who has not witnessed the treatment of the compulsory dwellers on these penal islands. The first method is to convince the doctor that tuber¬ culosis or consumption has been contracted. Once this is