DEVIL’S ISLAND

Evening Star, Issue 19661, 14 September 1927, Page 10

DEVIL’S ISLAND

HAPLESS POLITICAL PBSMEIS “ No gamble is too reckless for liberty from Devil’s Island. Rather than rot here, any one of us would face anything—death, severe punishment. Before wo had any hope of being transferred to the mainlaid, we didn’t even count the risk wo ran when wo tried to escape.” It is the hot hour of the noon siesta in Devil’s Island, French Guiana, where Captain Dreyfus once languished for five years, and an American woman, Blair Niles, is listening to the stories of tlie men now exiled there. France has talked of abolishing this notorious place of exile, but at present it is still used as an “ Island of Treason.” On this particular island there are now only nineteen prisoners, Mrs Niles tells ns in the New York ‘Times.’ They are all political prisoners, mostly men accused of trying to betray Franco during the World War, and it is one of these who is sitting for bis pen-portrait. The author writes :

“ A short, stocky man with large innocent brown eyes and fair skin took ns into the neat cabin, where a huge tortoise-shell cat dozed on the little iron bed as tranquilly as though her master had been a king instead of a convicted traitor. In fact, since rats fancy Devil’s Island, the authorities encourage cats, so that you come away with the impression that there’s a cat to practically every prisoner. As characteristic of the island as its cats arc its moustaches. Political prisoners being exempt from the rule that decrees a full shave for the convict, they all pride themselves upon some form of whiskers, making the most of the privilege which they share in common with the keepers, the civilians, and the executioner.

“The earnest little man who invited us into his cabin used a heard as his badge of superiority to a mere burglar or murderer. Ho was in khaki as a further distinction from the white cotton of the convict, and, of course, he was known by a name instead of a number. He seemed so mild that it was bard to credit him with having been the originator of a dramatic attempt to escape. Yet every detail of his story was confirmed by the warden of the island. “ It was told by its hern—l think 1 may use the word hero, for surely defiant courage is the orthodox attribute of heroes, even though they happen to be prisoners. The hero then told the tale as though it belonged to his past much as an old man might exhume an adventure of his youth.

“ ‘ Recently,’ explained this exile with the naive brown eyes, ‘ recently my tactics have changed. Now that one of ns has been transferred we’re all working for the same thing. Before that no risk was too great.’ “ And then he goe.s on to tell his amazed visitors how ho managed to build and launch a ennoo here or Devil’s Island, under the very eyes of the armed guards:

“‘You see,’ lie began slowly and thoughtfully, ‘ a keeper on duty has many men to watch, while they must watch but one--the keeper. From hours of study they learn to know bis every habit. They know just how far lie will walk in a. certain direction before he turns; they know about the speed of his walk; they know how sharp his hearing is and the approximate range of his eyesight; they know' whether he’s absent-minded or nleri. and at what hours of the day his attention is apt to wander. “‘Oh, a man in prison thinks . . . reflects . . calculates.

“‘As for our affair of tho canoe, that was a matter of six months’ planning. We did it together—l and ray comrade, who lives in tho next cabin. It took us six months to collect the wood for tho canoo and tho scraps of cloth for the sail. Wo bargained part of our food for that wood, stealing the opportunity to trade with tho convicts who are once in a while sent back and forth between Royalc and Diablo. Our sail was a patchwork of convict trousers and shirts. When it was all finished it wasn’t a bad sail, you know. Wo could work on tho sail at night, but the canoe had to bo made in broad daylight, because, you see, we’re locked up in our cabins at night,’ “ ‘But bow? How was it possible—iu broad daylight?’ “ ‘ Well, first, of course, wo had to excavate under my cabin: we needed a space big enough to hold our canoo and big enough to hold one of us at a time while we worked ou it. “ ‘Wo did the work by turns, one working while the other kept watch We’d learned that iho keepers never went around to the back of tho cabin, so the work must bo done from Unit side. One by one we moved ibc stones of tbo foundation and then dug out as much earth as was necessary. We knew pretty exactly tho keepers’ hours, and then one of us was always ready to give tho alarm. In the same way, turn and turn about, wo built the canoe. Tho very last tiling—when all was ready-—was to break through the cement floor of my cabin. We had to postpone that until fho very night wo left, for, of course, it would have been discovered.

“‘Then, through the opening in the floor wo let ourselves down to the canoo, and the thing was done.’ “‘What next?’ “‘Thou wo carried tho boat down over tho rocks, launched her, and headed for Venezuela.’

“ ‘ For Venezuela! In a canoe I’ Wo remembered the great rollers which make tho whole of the Guiana coast tricky _ navigation even for trained seamen, in modem ships with charts and compass at their service. ‘ For Venezuela . . . past all the Guiauas . . . in an open canoe?’ “‘But, Monsieur, Madame, have I not said that no risk was too great? And for us there is no freedom this side of Venezuela. And for freedom what risk is too great!’ “ Tho sequel was inevitable disaster. Tbo flimsy canoo was dashed to pieces on tho rocks of Devil’s Island itself. The conspirators were able to swim to safety. They live now, upheld by that frail hope of transference to tho mainland. “Meanwhile, one of them carves paper knives and ornaments from the shell of the native tortoise, while the other makes pen-and-ink and watercolor sketches of butterflies and plant? for tho great book on the fauna and flora of French Guiana which he dreams of writing when ho shall have been permitted to go over to the mainland. “ Wily were these men on Devil’s Island? One of them, of German parentage, though born in Fiance and never naturalised as a German, had been taken fighting for the Central Powers. The other did not confide tho cause of his sentence. His was the eager temperament which looks forward; his whole thought is now occupied with what he shall do on that ardently-desired mainland. If they are disappointed . . . but that they do not yet face.” Another more swiftly-sketched portrait, yet one equally memorable, this woman traveller leaves with her renders. It is this: “Among these political prisoners there is the haunting and mysterious figure of Jnsienki. Whenever I think of Devil’s Island 1 see his haggard face, palo above his full dark heard. Ho is wearing an American aviator’s cup and a khaki coat, from pockets of which he produces letters on the official paper of the American Red Cross and the American Consular servire. I suppose ho was somehow clothed below that coat, but I remember so vividly the troubled eyes and the coat whose pockets are stuffed with, unavailing documents that X can only vaguely rc-

call a certain sketchiness about the legs. “Jasicuki spoke rapidly, Jnrlively. Ho was convinced that his letters were being held up. He would ask permission to write; it would be granted; but no answer ever came to what Jic wrote. He declared himself to be ‘ Exaviateur Jasienki,’ who had fought, with the Americans, and he begged help to get in touch with those who knew him in the free world which on Devil’s Island seems as distant as some far star. 1 don’t know with wdmt offence the man is charged, I have no idea whether he is guilty or innocent. But ho is unhappy; ho is on Devil’s Island, and if ho' has friends or relatives they should somehow establish communication with him.

“Of such is the real Devil’s Island; so unlike anything else on earth that to know it is to add to your life another incarnation. Yon have done more than live in the world; yen have known Devil’s Island.”

How inaccessible this penal colony still is, the author remarks, may he judged hy the fact that no ship dying other than the flag of Franco is allowed to sail within a, mile and a-half of its forbidden shores. Because of its air of mystery Devil’s Island has come to be regarded as the whole of the penitentiary system of French Guiana, but Mrs Niles' shows it to ho only a small part of that system. It is the smallest of a group of three islands known collectively as the lies du Saint, the other two being He Rovale and Ho St. Joseph. On the throe islands there are about (500 convicts of various ' kinds, and on the mainland of French Guiana there are 6,400 more, making i. total prison population of 7,000. Landing first at Si. Laurent, on the mainland, from the convict ship Martiniere, the prisoners are later distributed to Hie various islands and prison camps; but of all the places to which they can bo assigned, Airs Niles tells ns, the most dreaded, lonely, and maddeningly monotonous is Devil’s Island.