A/N. 'Javart' is an archaic vetinary term for a sore or ulcer on a horse's pastern. I have no idea what disease it actually refers to or what the modern equivalent is.
To Anonymous - thanks for pointing out the Bicetre thing. I know it has an accent but my computer refuses to produce threm. Sorry to mutilate the French language ;-) Also thanks for pointing out the other two errors - I'll ammend them at some point. Oh, and I do read Nalzac and it's not coincicedence that Javert's perdecesor is named Taillefer - I'd just been re-reading Pere Goriot when I wrote that chapter.

On November 20th, four years since our story began, a group of convicts had been hired out to work in a quarry just outside of Toulon. Both Jean Valjean and Griffon were amongst this group. M Delbecq having been promoted, the chain gang was accompanied instead by two rather inexperienced young men. One of them, a cheerful blond lad who allowed the prisoners to sing as they worked, was supposedly guarding them on this day, sleepily watching them as the worked and sung.

"Where is the woman I call my wife?
Waiting for me to resume my life?
Guarding her arse with a butcher's knife
Or screwing the concierge?
Over the wall!"

This blond guard, Darbeau, walked a few paces distant from the workers to speak to the quarry foreman. Griffon took advantage of his complete lack of interest in his charges to whisper to Valjean:

"Are you all set? Do you understand what you have to do?"

"Head for Grasse and you'll catch me up."

"Yes, but before that?"

"I know what I have to do, Andoche, but I'm not sure how it's going to work. What about role call?"

"That's the beauty of it! You'll still be there, Jean, and able to answer your name – you'll just be strapped under the middle cart rather than sitting in it! Posh never checks, he just calls – I don't think he'd care if we all escaped."

"But what about the other one? He checks."

"I've got that sorted. I, like my father before me, was a horse doctor at one time – s'where my surname comes from. I'm going to have a play with his horse's shoes – with any luck he'll be well behind us."
"But you can't pull the same trick again tomorrow."

"Tomorrow doesn't matter – I can manage, I've done it before! I just what to give you a head start. Four bloody years of school and circumstances are finally with us – Delbecq replaced by that fool Darbeau – "

At that moment another guard, a tall, dark-haired young man, joined Posh Darbeau and the foreman. Griffon gave a slight but visible shudder: " Urgh, heads down!" he whispered and picked up the next verse of the group's work song, singing with conviction.

"Where are the children who bear my name?
Making a circle to play a game?
Do they say to the neighbours I'm not to blame
Or spit at the thought of me?
Over the wall!"

The dark haired youth looked at him pointedly then at Darbeau.

"Are they allowed to do that, Charles?"

"Do what?"

"Sing"

" Ever the consciencious one, aren't you? Me, I have no idea! But I'll shut them up if you think that they're not."

Darbeau cracked his lash theatrically over the convicts' backs, not touching flesh but making the whip sing dangerously in the air

"Shut up, you dogs! Silence in the ranks!"

Griffon stopped a little later than the rest, still singing "Or spit at the thought of me" when the others were quiet. This earned him a cut of the whip from Darbeau and the reprimand, "It'll be double and solitary next time 57884"

In the late afternoon, Darbeau's attention having wandered again, Griffon, Varlet and Petit were able to strap Valjean under the middle wagon. He could scarcely be seen as it was, and the dangling legs of the prisoners would render him totally invisible when the cart was loaded. When they got onto the cart the three convicts huddled together to disguise their chain mate's absence.

The three wagons lumbered off back to the town. It seemed Griffon's attempt at sabotage had been successful since two miles short of the prison the brown mare ridden by the dark haired guard stumbled, slipping dork on her knees and pitching the young man onto the road.

"Bloody hell, mate! Are you alright?"

"Fine," said the young guard, looking over his dusty uniform and the smear of blood on one of the mare's knees. "No harm done, I think. But her bloody shoe's hanging by a nail – no wonder she fell." He scratched at the frightened animal's neck: "Don't know how you managed it, old girl – these were new on last week," he mused, running his hand down the horse's leg to get her to pick her foot up. "Let's have a closer look at this, " He bent over, pouting slightly and muttering under his breath, "Well, well . . ."

"So, what's the verdict?" called back Darbeau.

"The shoe's hanging by a nail, like I said. If I can work that out then she can probably be ridden home. If not then she'll have to be led."

"Shall we wait?"

"God no! Either way I'll be forever and Delbecq will have your head if you don't get this lot back before nightfall – you don't need me slowing you down. I'll catch up, Charles, if I can."

Up in the middle cart Griffon grinned and remarked, sotto voce, "Plus Ca change – Idiot Boy."

Everything seemed to go according to plan from then. Posh Darbeau neither checked the prisoners nor noticed that Valjean answered from under the wagon. The convicts were escorted back inside and the wagons and horses (and Jean Valjean) were sent round to the stable court. As soon as it was dark, Valjean slipped down from under the cart, shimmied over the yard's low wall and disappeared.

However, within the prison precinct proper, the plan was rapidly starting to unravel. Delbecq had appeared and was questioning Darbeau.

"What's this about you bringing the contingent back with just you and the gendarmes? Is that right?"

"Yes, Sir."

"And where's Javart?"

"The mare cast a shoe – he couldn't keep up."

"So you left him behind and conducted three wagons of convicts back on your own? If you'd thought, you would have waited. But you don't think, do you Darbeau? Did you check the prisoners over on return?"

"I called role – "

"I didn't ask if you called role," Delbecq snapped, beginning to move through the ranks of prisoners, "24905? 19602? - "

Griffon began to tremble slightly. Valjean was probably gone by now but he hadn't meant for his friend's absence to be discovered until at least the next morning. He looked down at the iron on his leg – not actually attached to anything since he had filled it through before tampering with the mare's shoes – then round at Delbecq.

"24601? 24601? - "

So he knew! But even half an hour's delay when pursued, Griffon knew from experience, could be the difference between escape and recapture. He broke rank.

No one was quite sure about the sequence of events that followed. One moment prisoner 57884 was seen to break rank, and what seemed like the next moment he was up on the lowest part of the flat part of the prison roof and still running. The yard below – both guards and prisoners – was in uproar. Only M Delbecq retained his self-possession. Drawing a pistol he calmly took aim and fired. 57884 was seen to stumble, recover himself and continue. Delbecq fired again and he fell.

"Figard, L'Anglais – go get him down. Ozy, get them to fire the alarm gun. Darbeau, you go and sit in my office and keep out of the way so you can't fuck anything else up!"