In partnership with Rocambole, the app for reading differently, we are offering a new episode of Tina Bartoli's literary soap L'Ancre Noire every day at 5 p.m.
Summary of season I: Clémence, consultant overwhelmed by her success, dreams of becoming a writer. She won a three-week coaching session with Jean De Saint Geores, an author whom she admires. He welcomed him to his property in the Vosges, the former home of the ruined colonial merchant of the 18th century, where the author very quickly discovered four anchors. One of them is named after the boat on which his former companion Abel, L'Espérance , disappeared .
The coach becomes more and more pressing. And Clémence understands that he intends to steal the book she is writing and make it disappear, by plunging it into a lake with one of the anchors attached to the foot. In extremis, she manages to escape by underground just before the property ignites.
After the fire, the investigators find the corpses of the previous authors whom the author made disappear, as well as that of a man whom they estimate to be De Saint Geores. But Clémence, who saw a sedan escape from the property before the flames engulfed it, has serious doubts. She leaves to settle in a small Corsican village. One day, she receives a letter which seems to sign from Octave, the son of her executioner…
SEASON II, EPISODE 1 - Le Rocher du Diable
“Please, kniha, a ti, kteří necestují, si z ní přečtou pouze jednu stránku. "
("The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page.")
What a curious language is Czech, isn't it? Melodious, accentuated and thick, like its people. I ended up getting used to it, my forced retirement in this land without sea forced me there. I melted into it, I disappeared there.
I have spent my life traveling under all seas, under all oceans. A liquid and silent existence, sometimes light as a bubble, sometimes heavy as lead. Sometimes blue like a lagoon, sometimes as dark as the depths of the abyss. During my diving career, I read a lot of books I think, but the call of the ocean is still whispering in my ear: "Many pages are still to be discovered".
I intended for archeology, but a falling out with my father forced me to give up my studies. To support myself, I became a diver on the oil platforms. A monastic life, dangerous and without interest. Until the day I met an American billionaire: art collector, he was looking to assemble a team to excavate underwater wrecks. My diving skills and my knowledge of art history allowed me to get the job and, a few weeks later, I embarked on a brand new, technologically over-equipped ship. We saved from the appetite devouring the oceans the priceless testimonies of distant times. Sometimes we had the blessing of the governments with which we negotiated our finds, but we often flirted with illegality. The legislation concerning underwater research was as variable as it was negotiable: depending on where in the world we dive, we were looters of wrecks, treasure hunters or benefactors in the service of science.
I really liked this job, I could quench my passion for the forgotten mysteries of History. The equipment at my disposal was at the cutting edge of technology, which greatly facilitated my research, and the credits of my sponsor were almost unlimited: he only asked me to speak about the holds of these giants engulfed by the waters. I was well aware that the place of these treasures was in museums rather than in the private property of my boss, but, conversely, were they intended to keep their secrets in the silent oblivion of the depths?
I wanted to respect these sleeping beauties: I did not rape them, I resurrected them. Also, for ethical reasons, I had instituted rigorous methods of excavation and I scrupulously recorded in my notebooks the fruit of my research. But beyond the interest of my activity, I loved this adventure life because I was free and without borders. I have brought to the surface as many treasures as memories. I am rich with these.
When we finished a site and the parts had been delivered to our happy sponsor, we used to take a few days off before heading for the next sleeping wreck. Most of the crew took advantage of the situation to return home and find their families. I was one of the few who always stayed on board.
After a successful campaign of excavations on a fleet of Spanish ships sunk in 1715 near the coast of Florida, I decided to set sail for the Dominican Republic, when the whole team had left with its own. Alone on board with my old friend Bob, the captain of the ship, we planned to anchor in a small secret cove, protected from the vagaries of the sea. A haven of peace to froth a few bottles of rum and watch the stars while evoking stories old sea wolves.
But on this tropical summer evening, a little breeze started to wrinkle the smooth surface of our lagoon. I remember the date perfectly because it was 08.08.08. We needed more to worry, we knew this coastline well and we knew we were protected. We continued to drink as the night fell and the wind strengthened. From where we were, we could guess the waves swelling, bristling with white foam; in a few minutes, the weather turned to a storm and the rain came. Quiet in our refuge, we admired the spectacle of the raging sea in the twilight when, suddenly, I seemed to distinguish in the distance the masts of an old galleon. Looking with suspicion at my already well-opened bottle of rum, I wondered for a moment if the stories of ghost ships hadn't ended up turning my head. I shared my hallucination with my accomplice who, helping alcohol, burst out laughing. However, I stayed focused, my eyes narrowed. As I stared at the gray horizon, the vision of the ship tossed in the sea storm reappeared. Then I seemed to distinguish screams. I jumped on my binoculars which confirmed my intuition: a few cables away, an old rig was caught in the unrestrained rage of the storm. Bob, who was no longer laughing at all, ripped off the binoculars and said calmly:
- You have to go help them buddy.
Without waiting, he put on his rain gear and started the engines.
As soon as we left the creek, we were swept away by the storm. The frigate was close, we could distinguish its lights between two breaking waves. The wind roared, the sea rumbled and spat huge sprays of water on the deck. At the helm, Bob stayed the course without faltering.
Suddenly he yelled:
- Fuck, they're going straight to Devil's Rock!
Turning my head to port, I discovered with horror the enormous black mass of the reef, an austere sentry erected in the midst of the enraged waves. The galleon was rushing in his direction and I understood that it would not be long before it shattered against the breakers. Determined, Bob put on full force to join the ship in distress. He then gave me the helm and grabbed the megaphone in which he yelled warnings. We were getting dangerously close to the frigate, but also to the reef.
A few minutes later, the old three-masted wooden hull smashed into a dismal creak. The wind brought back for a moment the echo of cries of terror, then the ship disappeared. Frozen by this nightmarish vision, I did not immediately notice the silence of the megaphone. I started calling Bob: no answer. Impossible to let go of the bar even for a moment, at the risk of joining the engulfed galleon.
- Bob! Bob !! Bob !!!
While blowing my breath in the storm, the freezing evidence finally seized me: I was alone on board.
There were no survivors from the sinking of the frigate. Neither did Bob, never returned: he had lost his life this stormy evening while bravely trying to save the crew of L'Espérance , a replica of an 18th century slave ship. On board, there was a class from the maritime high school in Nantes, led by his teacher, a certain Abel Duchamp, whose educational project consisted in retracing the triangular course of the boat. The latter had sunk somewhere in the Caribbean Sea resulting in the bankruptcy of the owner who operated it. Legend has it that that night, the boat was carrying a fabulous treasure on board. Strangely, 230 years later, the story of this cursed boat repeated itself: Hope , the so-called…
It was enough to stir up my curiosity. After some research in the maritime registers, I discovered with amazement that L'Espérance of 1788 had sunk a few cables from the sinking of its 2008 replica, near a pass well known to local sailors: the Roaring. I knew this spot, I had dived there several times because it was full of forgotten wrecks. Ignoring the macabre legends, helped by my loyal team, I undertook to comb it out: we brought up to the surface a number of artifacts, coins and silver bars, but nothing that made me think that one of the wrecks explored was L'Espérance , my ghost ship.
But one day, while we were continuing our research, an alarming message came to us from the United States: our sponsor had just been arrested for concealment of cultural property with a view to financing terrorist enterprises. His spectacular collection had been seized and the American authorities were heading straight for us to arrest us.
I learned later that this arrest was the result of an Interpol investigation: all our wanderings had been followed for four years and, too busy probing the seabed, I hadn't noticed anything. When the police arrived, we all magically vanished.
In wanting to make the ghosts speak, I ended up falling into their world.
(…)
Check out the next episode right here on April 5 at 5 p.m. or on the Rocambole app for iOS or Android.
- Shipwreck
- Books
- Literature