Letters From My Windmill Alphonse Daudet (top 10 ebook reader .txt) 📖

mutilated…. it was pitiful to see them alltangled up together. We found the captain in full dress uniform, andthe chaplain with his stole round his neck. In one place, between tworocks, lay the ship's young apprentice, open-eyed…. He looked asthough he was still alive—but he wasn't. It was fated; no one couldhave survived.

Here the Master broke off his tale:

—Hey, Nardi, he cried, the fire's going out.

Nardi threw two or three pieces of tarred planking onto the emberswhich spluttered and then blazed. Lionetti continued,

—The saddest thing about this story is this…. Three weeks before thedisaster, a small corvette, similar to the Sémillante, on its way tothe Crimea was also wrecked in the same way, almost at the same place.This time however, we managed to save the crew and twenty soldiers intransit who were on board…. These unfortunate soldiers, you see, werenot able to go about their business. We took them to Bonifacio and theystayed with us at the port for two days…. Once they were thoroughlydried out and back on their feet, we bade them farewell and good luck,and they returned to Toulon, where they later set sail once again forthe Crimea…. It's not too difficult to guess which ship they sailedon! Yes, monsieur, it was the Sémillante…. We found all twenty ofthem amongst the dead, just where we are now…. I, myself, recovered agood looking Brigadier with fine whiskers, a fresh-faced man fromParis, whom I had put up at my house and who had made us laughcontinuously with his tales…. To see him there was heart breaking.Oh, Holy Mother of God!…

With that, Lionetti, deeply moved, knocked out his pipe and totteredoff to his cabin wishing me goodnight…. The sailors spoke quietly toeach other for a while, then they put out their pipes one by one.Nothing more was said. The old shepherd went off, and I remained alone,to mull things over, sitting amongst the sleeping crew.

* * * * *

Still affected by the horrendous tale I had just heard, I tried toreconstruct in my mind the unfortunate lost ship and the story of theagonising event witnessed only by the gulls. A few details struck meand helped me to fill out all the twists and turns of the drama: theCaptain in full dress uniform, the Chaplain's stole, the twentysoldiers in transit. I visualised the frigate leaving Toulon at night.As she left the port, the sea was up, the wind was terrible; but theCaptain was a valiant and experienced sailor and everybody on board wasrelaxed.

A fog got up in the morning. A sense of unease began to spread. Thewhole crew were on deck. The Captain stayed on the quarter-deck. In the'tween-decks where the soldiers were billeted, it was pitch black, andthe air was hot. Some of the men were sea-sick. The ship pitchedhorribly, which made it impossible to stand up. They talked in groups,sitting on the floor, clutching the benches for dear life; they had toshout to be heard. Some of them started to feel afraid. Listen,shipwrecks are common around those parts; the soldiers were therethemselves to prove it, and what they said was not at all reassuring.Especially the Brigadier, a Parisian, who was always making quips thatmade your flesh creep:

—A shipwreck! How hilarious, a shipwreck. We are about to leave for anicy bath, and then be taken to Captain Lionetti's place in Bonifacio,where blackbirds are on the menu.

The soldiers laughed….

Suddenly, there was a great creaking sound….

—What the hell's that? What's going on?

—We've just lost the rudder, said a thoroughly sea-drenched sailor whowas running through the 'tween-decks.

—Have a good trip! cried the never-say-die Brigadier, but this timethe remark caused no laughter.

There was chaos on deck, but everything was hidden by the fog. Thesailors were all over the place, scared, and groping about…. Norudder! Changing course was impossible…. The Sémillante could onlyrun before the wind…. It was at that moment that the customs' officersaw her; it was half past eleven. In front of the frigate, a sound likea cannon shot was heard…. The breakers! the breakers! It was all up,there was no hope, ship and men together were going straight onto a leeshore…. The Captain went down into his cabin…. After a short timehe reappeared on the quarter-deck—in full dress uniform… He wantedto look right when he died.

In the 'tween-decks, the soldiers were anxiously exchanged glanceswithout saying a word…. The sick were doing their best to get ontheir feet…. Even the Brigadier wasn't laughing any more…. It wasthen that the door opened and the Chaplain appeared on the thresholdwearing his stole:

—Kneel down, my children!

Those who could obeyed, and in a resounding voice, the priest began theprayer for the dying.

Suddenly, there was a formidable impact, a cry, one cry consisting ofmany, an immense cry, their arms fully tensed, their hands all claspedtogether, their shocked faces looking at a vision of death as it passedbefore them like a stroke of lightning….

Mercy!…

That is how I spent the whole night, ten years after the event,reliving, and evoking the spirit of the ill-fated ship whose wreckagewas all around me. Far away, in the straits, the storm was still ragingon. The camp-fire's flame was blown flat by a gust of wind, and I couldhear our boat bobbing listlessly about at the foot of the rocks, itsmooring squealing.

THE CUSTOMS' MEN

The boat Emilie from Porto-Vecchio, on which I had made the mournfulvoyage to the Lavezzi Islands, was a small, old, half-decked, customs'vessel, with no shelter available from the wind, the waves, nor eventhe rain, save in a small, tar covered deckhouse, hardly big enough fora table and two bunks. It was unbelievable what the sailors had to putup with in bad weather. Their faces were streaming, and their soakedtunics steaming, as if in the wash. In the depths of winter, theseunfortunate souls spent whole days like this, crouching on theirdrenched seats, shivering in the unhealthy wet and cold, even atnights. Obviously, a fire couldn't be lit on board, and it was oftendifficult to make the shore…. Well, not one of these men complained.I always saw the same calmness