Papillon by Henri Charrière

Tonight i buttonholed Dega, THEN Fernandez. Dega said he had no confidence in the plan but that he would pay any amount of money to get his internment lifted. He asked me to write Sierra, tell him that it had been suggested to him and was it at all possible? On the same day Chatal brought back the answer: "Don't pay anybody to lift your internment. It has to come from France, and no one, not even the director of the penitentiary, can do it. If you're desperate, you can try to get out, but only the day after the boat-the Mana-leaves for the islands."

We had eight days left before we were to leave for the islands, and I began to think it might be better to escape from there rather than from our room in the hospital. In the same note Sierra had said that if I wanted to, he would send a liberated convict to talk to me and help me prepare a boat behind the hospital. He was from Toulouse, his name was Jésus, and he had prepared Dr. Bougrat's escape two years earlier. In order to see him, I'd have to go for X-rays in another building. This place was built into the hospital wall; the libérés[1] were provided access with fake passes. He warned me that before being X-rayed I should remove my plan, for the doctor might notice it if he took a picture of me below my lungs. I sent Sierra a note telling him to send Jésus to X-ray and to get together with Chatal to have me sent too. That same night Sierra told me it would be the day after tomorrow at nine.