Episode 19: quand un incident surgit
- Valérie Bauwens
- 5 hours ago
- 3 min read
They rose to the challenge set by Christine Saupagna Isler, their French teacher, as part of their French lessons. The pupils in the VP1 class at Cugy School have written adventure stories inspired by our sea voyage and that of the girls in 1925.
The given topic:
"A group of female sailors set out to sea in search of adventure. Anchored in a cove, they are resting when an incident occurs, which you will describe. You have the choice between:
· a breakdown
· an illness
· a storm
· an intruder"
Some therefore imagined a parasitic animal on board (a rat hunt), a migrant hidden in the ‘hold’ since Marseille, a pudding left to cool on deck which a careless foot slips on, and so on…
Well done to our budding adventurers!
And now, time for some real thrills.
The sea was turquoise, the sky azure and the island a paradise. It seemed to be reaching out to the sailors seeking rest on this vast expanse of water.
The three sailors didn’t hesitate. They set sail in the Octavus, a sturdy sailing boat despite its age, towards the first cove that caught their eye.
The beach was beautiful, and they improvised a nap under the coconut palms. Sleep came quickly, and one by one they fell into the arms of Morpheus.
The three adventurers had been asleep for a long time when the sky turned black…
They were roused by a bolt of lightning, which struck a palm tree before setting the surrounding forest ablaze. Faced with this horrifying spectacle, they seemed to be at the gates of Hell, with the burning jungle on one side and the raging sea on the other. Despite the panic, Miette, the most experienced of the three women, realised that the old lightning rod she had fitted to the Octavus in her distant youth had probably not been working for years.
So, struggling to hold back her thick blonde hair as it fell over her face, she signalled to her friends to follow her. She then plucked up her courage and threw herself into the sea between two sets of breaking waves. After climbing onto the Octavus, she pulled her friends up, and, summoning all her composure, she suppressed her fear and calmed them down.
She explained what they had to do. They had to leave the cove as quickly as possible to avoid smashing the Octavus against the rocks, then get out of the storm, praying that lightning wouldn’t strike. The manoeuvre was a magnificent success, as they cut across the swells to avoid capsizing.
The cove was now behind them, and through a series of difficult manoeuvres, they finally left the eye of the storm.
Victor Conus, 10 VP1
Such a little thing
The ants were coming out onto the deck; there were four of them; they were scared; ‘Take in the sails, take in the sails, sort out the lines, I’m scared, shut up, one ant screamed, shut up I said, two ants ran down the steps leading to the saloon two at a time, turn on the radio, I’m coming back up, wait, I can hear something, no, it’s crackling, there’s nothing now, we’re lost.
The ants’ fear was palpable; they ran, they pulled, they manoeuvred, they wept. Their tiny little hearts beat wildly, echoing throughout the boat; they died, they came back to life, as if from a brief standstill, offering a glimpse of the horror and terror that filled their tiny little hearts.
The storm resumed, stronger and more powerful than before.
Woe betide the ants, alone on their tiny boat in the vast ocean; woe betide these women, chained in a titanic struggle against Neptune. The ocean clutches them in its hooked fingers; they are already suffocating. What a strange myth this is, of this age-old vengeance, which has sent a thousand ships onto the reefs, tearing open a thousand hulls and a thousand sails.
‘Ah,’ said one of the ants, ‘my friends, faced with death, would we have the courage to think of past splendours? Would we find the strength to retrace a life?’
With that, the ants began to sing a song—a sailor’s song, a woman’s song, a song of tiny things, lost in the vastness of the sea. An ant’s song, perhaps?
A wave crashed, another lapped in, the last one drowned her.
Am I going to die?
I am dead
Nora, 10 VP1
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