Columbia Star

1963        Celebrating 60 Years      2023

Devil’s Island, my own Papillon—Dreyfus’s bench

Originally published March 24, 2006


Across an inlet of strong currents from Isle Royale is Devil’s Island from which Papillon escaped but Dreyfus didn’t.

Across an inlet of strong currents from Isle Royale is Devil’s Island from which Papillon escaped but Dreyfus didn’t.

My objective, after following the Amazon 4000 miles from Cuzco to Belem, was to visit Devil’s Island. This infamous prison had been the setting for Papillon, a story of adventure and human challenge that had intrigued me.

My travelling partner was Frank, a millionaire contractor from Bogota I had met on the riverboat from Manaus. He was a wiry 65 years, full of boast and bother and anxious to sit on the bench on Devil’s Island as the falsely accused Dreyfus had a century before, staring across the Atlantic at the France he loved so dearly.

This had been his obsession for many years, and now that his wife had died and his daughters were married, he had the opportunity. Frank’s father had been Colombia’s ambassador to France, and he was raised and educated in the elite circles of Paris.

Thirty minutes after we deplaned in Cayenne I realized that French Guiana was an outrageously expensive French province inhabited almost entirely by space scientists and butterfly hunters from Europe. The only room we could find contained one light bulb, two cots, and three mice for only $50.

For three days we stood in line to purchase tickets out of Cayenne, searched for someone who could guide us to Devil’s Island, and waited for Frank’s French to return. At the appointed time all three happened.

Our route to Devil’s Island took us by local bus from the central market at 5 a.m. to the edge of the French Space Center at 7 a.m. where we followed the security fence to a boardwalk over a marsh and down to a wharf. We slipped a fisherman 10 francs and settled back into a pile of smelly nets for the promised hour’s sail to the once bustling French penal colony.

Ten minutes later, however, our ne’er-to-betrusted captain docked at a fancy marina and pointed to a sleek ferry boat. “It will take you to Devil’s Island,” he said.

For five francs we took an upholstered seat alongside French picnickers in white pants, deck shoes, and bikinis. We were the only ones without baskets full of French bread and wine.

It turned out Devil’s Island was really three islands, the largest of which, Isle Royale, was now a recreation area for the employees of the Space Center. The smallest, Devil’s Island, was off limits because of the strong currents and its lack of drinking water. Even with offers of great sums of money from Frank none of the sailors would take us there.

We satisfied our curiosity by walking through the crumbling remains of the administrative and hospital buildings. Then, while the French technocrats sunbathed on the rocky beach, Frank and I secretively crossed the barriers into ruins that justifiably embarrassed modern Frenchmen.

Wooden eaves and roofs had long decayed in the tropical climate leaving only stone foundations and limestone walls. We could feel the pain of Papillon and Dreyfus in the hand-drawn pictures of torture screaming out from plaster walls. Row after row of iron frames, iron bars, and iron chains seemed to be etched with human agony. We spent several hours of reverence and gloom walking where political prisoners had spent their last years thousands of miles from the land they loved and had tried to change.

The tropical sun slowed us to nap in a patch of banana trees. Images of slow-moving men in baggy, broad striped pajamas moved through my dreams when, all of a sudden, I realized I was alone.

Frank’s clothes and valuables were in a neat little pile at the edge of our mat of banana leaves. His footprints led down to the surf.

A hundred yards out in the channel Frank was struggling against the current that had swept many a desperate escapee out into the shark-infested Atlantic. He was going to Devil’s Island to sit on Dreyfus’s bench.

Or die trying!

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