Trapped
Javert saw the commotion and immediately went over to see what assistance he could provide. Commotion was never a good thing in the bagne and they may need assistance in getting the convicts to refocus on their work. When the weather was cold and wet they always seemed to need the extra reminder.
The convicts parted the moment they saw him, largely out of fear that if they did not move willingly then he would force the issue. Faure saw him coming and waved him over faster. He was standing over a seated convict who was clutching uselessly at his arm and who seemed to be in some pain.
"Good, Javert, you're here," Faure told him. "There was an accident and I'm going to need you to escort 24601 to the infirmary."
Javert nodded. "Stand up."
24601 winced but did as he was told. Good.
Javert began to walk to the infirmary and the convict had heard Faure's orders and began to trail after him. They both ignored any curious onlookers as they went. It was not as though Javert were uncurious as to what had happened but there had been work to be done and no time to waste asking Faure and he was not about to lower himself to asking a convict. He would hear what had happened soon enough.
When they entered the infirmary, 24601 made no move to shut the door so Javert shut it perhaps a little bit harder than necessary. Even with his arm apparently injured, there was really nothing stopping the convict from closing the door. It was hardly a two-handed job.
No one was in the room except for the two of them, not even the convict who reigned over this place and certainly no guards. He wondered where the 'doctor', so to speak, was.
He could not leave 24601 here alone unless he chained him down but there was also no point in just waiting around indefinitely hoping that someone else would come and deal with the man.
He reached for the door handle and tried to pull it open. Unfortunately, it did not move. Frowning, he pulled again and it still made no progress.
Javert turned to 24601 in annoyance, as if this whole thing was his fault. In a way, it was. If he hadn't injured his arm then they wouldn't have to be in the infirmary and then it wouldn't matter whether or not the door was going to open.
"The door gets stuck sometimes," 24601 said curtly.
Javert nodded, vaguely remembering hearing complaints of that sort but he never had any business in the infirmary so this was the first he had heard of it.
He could try and bang on the door and get someone's attention but he had no way of knowing if anybody was nearby. It was not as though they would be stuck there forever. Faure knew where he was and where 24601 was so he would send somebody eventually. Maybe the convict who was supposed to be here would even return on his own.
In the meantime, there was nothing to do but wait. Well, wait and tug uselessly at the handle a few more times trying to get it to open but there was no luck.
24601 watched him impassively.
Finally giving up, Javert moved away from the door and took a seat. "Are you going to just stand there the whole time? We don't know how long this is going to be."
24601 did not respond but he did take a seat of his own on one of the infirmary beds. He glanced questioningly at the chains and then back at Javert.
"No, I'm not going to chain you down," Javert told him. The man really could actually speak and not expect Javert to magically know what he meant. Hewas no fortune-teller.
24601 looked curious but Javert was done indulging him.
After a silent battle of wills, the convict reluctantly said, "Why not?" His voice was as hoarse and raspy as anyone who had spent any significant amount of time chained in the bagne.
Javert raised an eyebrow. "Are you requesting for me to chain you down?"
The convict shook his head so fast that Javert fancied his head must have spun. "No, monsieur."
"There's no point to it," Javert told him. "I am here and we are trapped in this room so there is no need to make sure that you do not escape. There are only the two of us here and, despite your strength, you are injured and unarmed and I am neither. When that blasted door is open, I daresay you will be but there is little need for it now."
The convict said nothing, just nodded to show that he had understood.
There was a long silence between them.
"Your arm, is it broken?" Javert asked suddenly. Perhaps the convict did not know but he wanted to get a good idea of just how bad the wound was.
The convict eyed his arm speculatively. "I think so."
Javert decided that he did not quite trust the convict to know or, if he did, to even be truthful though there was little enough point in a lie when someone who knew these things would be there to examine him and discover the truth soon enough. Convicts often told stupid lies that anyone with an ounce of sense would be able to tell them would not be believed.
"I'm going to examine it myself," Javert announced before moving closer. There was no need to warn the convict except that he wanted to make sure he did not take him by surprise and end up with a fist to the face for his troubles. 24601, he knew, had fought guards before and even if two years in the double-chain had seemed to cure him of that, sometimes people reacted instinctively when startled. A convict's instinct tended always to violence. "Hold out your arm."
Looking wary, the convict did so and Javert gently began to examine him. The gentleness was not for the convict's own sake, of course. It was foolhardy and downright dangerous to be gentle with a convict. Not only did they not deserve it but it would convince them that the gentle guard was weak and usually they were right. There was no one as quick to take advantage of a perceived weakness as a convict. There was no point in cruelty for cruelty's sake, either, so Javert was not overly harsh and sought to find the perfect balance.
Right now, though, he did not know how injured this convict before him truly was and he had no intention of hurting him worse. If the arm was broken he would already be incapable of most work for weeks and further injuring him would only prolong his return to work. That would be unfortunate with any convict but even more so with someone as useful as this one.
24601 tensed as Javert touched his arm but did not say anything. He hissed at one point when Javert found the source of the injury.
Javert stepped back. "I believe it's broken."
The look on the convict's face suggested that he also thought that, to put it mildly, but he said nothing so there was nothing to rebuke him for.
Javert took his seat again. More time passed, as slow as molasses, and he idly considered going up to the door and trying to pull it open once again. It would be no use, however, and he did not want to waste the effort.
He looked vainly around the room to see something that could occupy him but there was not an excess of stimulation in the infirmary. There was just the convict. And what was he supposed to do? Strike up a conversation? What would they even talk about?
Javert realized that he was staring but the convict was looking down at his hands and did not seem to notice.
As the silence dragged on, it went from awkward to almost maddening. Normally he did not mind silence but normally he had something else to occupy his attention, some duty or task. Now there was nothing.
"Your arm," Javert said at last, almost without realizing he'd been speaking.
The convict's head jerked up. "My arm?"
Well he had already started this conversation so he may as well continue with it. "How did you injure it?"
For a moment, the convict just stared blinkingly at him.
Annoyed, Javert said, "Answer me, 24601."
"We were carrying a mast. Someone must have dropped it. I didn't see it happen. It hit my arm," the convict said shortly.
"That was careless," Javert noted. "You'll be out of work for some time, or at least most work. Yours can't be the first broken bone we've had here so there must be some other work that we can have you do."
The convict grimaced.
"What?" Javert asked rhetorically. "You would rather just sit in the infirmary for weeks until you are healed and not have to do any work at all?"
For a moment, Javert did not think that the convict would answer.
"Am I supposed to enjoy this work, monsieur?" he asked, a strange note in his voice.
"It would be foolish to expect a criminal to appreciate honest work," Javert said. "If you were willing to do honest work then you wouldn't be here."
The convict was referring to the fact that he was in prison and sentenced to hard labor as a punishment and no one was supposed to enjoy their punishment, even if they had believed they deserved it and wanted to suffer through it until they paid their debt to society (and wasn't that a rare attitude to find in the bagne). But even if they were free and doing honest labor for an honest wage and an honest life, men like this would never be able to see the value in it. It was not in their nature.
The convict's eyes flashed. "That's not true."
"Really?" Javert challenged. "Just what did you do to end up here? Theft? Forgery? Murder?"
The convict said nothing.
"Stealing instead of seeking out honest work to sustain yourself. Committing forgery instead of it. Killing someone rather than living an honest life. You had the choice to live an honest life or to live a criminal one and you made yours. You are right that it would be the height of folly to expect anything else," Javert said calmly.
The convict looked coldly at him. "What do you know of it? You weren't there. I tried-"
"I'm sure you did," Javert cut him off sarcastically. "But I'll indulge you here. Say you were very poor and you had a large family to provide for. Say there was little work to go around and the winter was harsh. Say you were worried about your very survival."
The convict was eyeing him warily, expecting a trap. He'd developed good instincts while here, as all convicts did. It was the only way to survive.
"Do you suppose you were the only one who could not find work? Were there jobs enough for every single person wherever you came from except for you?" Javert asked. Without waiting for an answer, he went on, "Exactly how many people got arrested when there was no work?"
The convict looked down.
"I'm willing to bet the answer is 'not many'," Javert said. "When things were difficult, they proved that they were honest men by sticking to the difficult if honest path while you revealed yourself to be nothing but a criminal at heart."
"You think that was the difficult path?" the convict asked harshly. "And this isn't?"
"I think that no one who commits a crime ever plans on going to Toulon and it's harder to stay honest than to try and escape through crime," Javert replied calmly. "And don't even tell me that you had it worse than they did or your situation was more desperate because, no matter how bad things are for you, there are always other people just as badly off who have somehow managed not to end up here. So no, to answer your question, you aren't supposed to enjoy this work but you had better grow accustomed to it or else when you leave here you will end up back here sooner or later."
The look that the convict gave him then was so dark that Javert had to fight the urge to draw back. He had more self-control than that, thankfully, or he would have no place guarding convicts like he was.
Clearly the convict was no longer in a mood for talking, if he ever had been. More relevantly, Javert had nothing more to say. He should have known that reminding a convict that his present unhappy circumstances were entirely his own fault and that not even the circumstances that he might honestly believe drove him to it could adequately explain it given how so many other men had not fallen to crime would not go very well.
But what else could one possibly speak to a convict about? He had already heard about the arm.
And now even that means of passing the time was gone.
Now there was nothing to do but sit and think.
He was told afterwards that it had taken them two hours to find them and get the door open but Javert would be willing to swear that it felt more like twenty and he rather fancied that the convict would agree.