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W. Somerset Maugham
was enjoying an hour's leisure. He had his own house. That was
not only one of the perquisites of his office, but it was a necessity,
since if he had lodged in the prison c^mp the convicts would have
made short work of him. One morning he would have been found
with his belly ripped open. It was true that the house was small, it
was just a wooden shack of one room, with a lean-to that served
as a kitchen; but it was surrounded by a tiny garden, within a pali-
sade, and in the garden grew bananas, papaias and such vegetables
as the climate allowed him to raise. The garden faced the sea and
was surrounded by a coconut grove. The situation was charming.
It was only a quarter of a mile from the prison, which was conven-
ient for his rations. They were fetched by his assistant, who lived
with him. The assistant, a tall, gawky, ungainly fellow, with deep-
set, staring eyes and cavernous jaws, was serving a life sentence for
rape and murder; he was not very intelligent, but in civil life he had
been a cook and it was wonderful what, with the help of the vege-
tables they grew and such condiments as Louis Remire could afford
to buy at the Chinese grocer's, he managed to do with the soup,
potatoes and cabbage, and eternal beef, beef for three hundred and
sixty-five days of the year, which the prison kitchens provided. It
was on this account that Louis Remire had pressed his claim on the
commandant when it had been found necessary fo get a new assis-
tant. The last one's nerves had given way and, absurdly enough,
thought Louis Remire with a good-natured laugh, he had de-
veloped scruples about capital punishment; now, suffering from
neurasthenia, he was on the lie St Joseph, where the insane were
confined.
His present assistant happened to be ill. He had high fever, and
looked very much as if he were going to die. It had been necessary
to send him to hospital. Louis Remire was sorry; he would not
easily find so good a cook again. It was bad luck that this should
have happened just now, for next day there was a job of work to
be done. Six men were to be executed. Two were Algerians, one
was a Pole, another a Spaniard from the mainland, and only two
were French. They had escaped from prison in a band and gone up
the river. For nearly twelve months, stealing, raping and killing
they had spread terror through the colony. People scarcely dared
move from their homesteads. Recaptured at last, they had all been
sentenced to death, but the sentence had to be confirmed by the
Minister of the Colonies, and the confirmation had only just ar-
An Official Position
221
rived. Louis Remire could not manage without help, and besides
there was a lot to arrange beforehand; it was particularly unfortu-
nate that on this occasion of all others he should have to depend on
an inexperienced man. The commandant had assigned to him one
of the turnkeys. The turnkeys are convicts like the others, but they
have been given their places for good behaviour and they live in
separate quarters. They are on the side of the authorities and so are
disliked by the other prisoners. Louis Remire was a conscientious
fellow, and he was anxious that everything next day should go
without a hitch. He arranged that his temporary assistant should
come that afternoon to the place where the guillotine was kept so
that he might explain to him thoroughly how it worked and show
him exactly what he would have to do.
The guillotine, when not in use, stood in a small room which
was part of the prison building, but which was entered by a sepa-
rate door from the outside. When he sauntered along there at the
appointed hour he found the man already waiting. He was a large-
limbed, coarse-faced fellow. He was dressed in the pink and white
stripes of the prison garb, but as turnkey he wore a felt hat instead
of the straw of common convicts.
'What are you here for?'
The man shrugged his shoulders.
'I killed a farmer and his wife.'
'H'm. How long have you got?'
'Life.'
He looked a brute, but you could never be sure of people. He
had himself seen a warder, a big, powerful man, faint dead away at
an execution. He did not want his assistant to have an attack of
nerves at the wrong moment. He gave him a friendly smile, and
with his thumb pointed to the closed door behind which stood the
guillotine.
'This is another sort of job,' he said. 'There are six of them, you
know. They're a bad lot. The sooner they're out of the way the
better.'
'Oh, that's all right. After what I've seen in this place I'm scared
of nothing. It means no more to me than cutting the head off
a chicken.'
Louis Remire unlocked the door and walked in. His assistant
followed him. The guillotine in that small room, hardly larger than
a cell, seemed to take up a great deal of space. It stood grim and
222
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