Not much is known about Bernard Carnot. All that is know for certain is that he was the son of a New Orleans innkeeper, and through a series of misunderstandings, he was convicted of a murder he did not commit and sent to Devil’s Island in 1922 part of the French penal colony system off the coast French Guiana.
Devil’s Island, as the name suggests, is hell on earth. It’s a rocky jungle of an island, rife with tropical disease, mosquitoes, and prisoner-on-prisoner violence. It was surrounded by sharks, as well as currents that had a tendency to dash one against the rocks which surround Devil’s island.
After sixteen years, almost all record and trace of Carnot had disappeared—that is, until an American Don Quixote, William Willis, met Carnot’s mother in New York. Hearing Carnot’s mother’s tale, Willis traveled to South America and enlisted the help of ex-convicts and current prisoners within the penal colony to find Carnot and help the him escape. When Carnot was found, he was barely alive and wearing nothing but rags. Willis provided him with a fake passport, money, and clothing, then smuggled Carnot aboard a supply ship which took him to Brazil. As if he hadn’t suffered enough, it’s believed that Carnot may have been killed in action after joining the French forces under Charles de Gaulle during World War II.