none of this, either.
I stay with these kindly people on their boat that night and the next day. But, on the third day, I’m conscious enough to explain the situation, how M. Teurnier will be coming to raise my boat and will be needing me.
I force my way onto my feet groggily and stagger back to the chemin de halage, thence to the berge with the sunken barge. M. Teurnier and another man are already there. They have a truck pulling a small boat on a trailer. They stare at me. My basic French isn’t enough. Don, the Canadian husband and father of the family, has come with me. He’s afraid I’ll collapse. He speaks French well – at least it sounds good to me. This part I can vaguely remember.
It turns out the river here is filled with sulfuric acid dumped at the Renault automobile plant upriver. M. Teurnier had assumed I knew this and so would be using a wet suit when I went into the river. He and the other man both look surprised that I’m alive. I know I must look like Lazarus risen from the grave with my gray skin flapping in pieces like a rotted grave shroud around me.
They go to work immediately, Don helping where he can, while I stumble weakly around trying to be of some assistance. They nail a large canvas tarpaulin all around the roof of the boat, letting it float down with weights along the sides. Then they set up a humongous pump and begin pumping. Water spurts out of a six-inch-diameter exit pipe. It shoots up into the air and splashes down into the river with a tumultuous, continuous crashing noise. A crowd has gathered again to watch the excitement. In the mêlée, I can’t find Don. Later, I discover this was the day they were scheduled to depart, and despite the complaints of their children, he couldn’t stay. I’ve lost my translator and trusty worker, and don’t see him again for twenty years.
The pump spouts water continually, but the boat, despite all this feverish activity, rises only a few inches, then settles back on the bottom, not unlike a beached, dying whale I once saw in California. They turn off the pump. I understand M. Teurnier saying to his brother that it must be a huge hole. They set up a second pump with an exit spout twice the size of the first. They turn this one on, and, with the two going, the boat makes a tremendous effort. The pumps make a horrendous racket, but the boat rises only slightly, then with what appears an overwhelming fatigue, settles back to the bottom. I’m weak and feeling much the same as the feelings I project into the boat.
Les Scaphandriers
Next, M. Teurnier begins to dress in a genuine diver’s outfit, a heavy canvas suit with oxygen tanks to feed a brass helmet over his head and face. He walks into the water, wearing weights around his neck, checks his hoses, pauses as his brother screws the helmet onto the top of the suit and clamps it. M. Teurnier signals with one finger to start the oxygen flowing and walks down and in, I presume through the same door I’ve been slogging in and out of during the few days I could work.
He comes back to the surface every fifteen minutes or so and tells us with hand signals and head shaking that he’s found nothing, no hole. He gives the signal to start the smaller of the two pumps. Water is rushing out again. This time, after only about five minutes, he comes staggering up the slippery bank clasping something in his left hand. His brother turns off the pump and opens the helmet.
M. Teurnier pushes his hand in front of my face, stares at me with his violet-blue eyes.
‘On vous a bien eu.’
I don’t know what this means any more than coulé. A young woman on the bank shouts to me in British English. I listen hard after all the noise.
‘Monsieur, he says you have been had!’
I also keep hearing another word that sounds like scaf on drier or maybe that’s several words run together. I look up at her.
‘Monsieur, don’t you realize how lucky you are? They are scaphandriers and the work is very dangerous.’
I look down at M. Teurnier. He seems to be embarrassed. I feel the rotted wood in his gloved hand. It’s like sponge. Maybe this is lucky, but it doesn’t seem like that to me. M. Teurnier undresses from his diving costume, stands briefly, shivering in his briefs, and dresses in his work clothes again. We walk across the street for a beer. I invite the young woman to join us. She’s somewhat leery, and I don’t blame her. I beg her to translate, she agrees and I order her a beer.
She’s all excited, it’s as bad as Rosemary with this damned boat when she first saw it. She babbles on in English.
‘These men are called les pieds-lourds because of the heavy leaded shoes they wear. This équipe that’s working on your boat is famous. Originally, it was a father and his sons. The father started as a scaphandrier in 1912; they specialize in renflouage, that is, bringing up sunken boats such as yours. You should be very proud.’
I don’t want to hear any more. This woman must be mad. I stare at her.
‘How do you know all this? It seems like very specialized knowledge, especially for a young Englishwoman like you.’
She smiles at me.
‘I am a student at l’École des mines. Also, I have always had a special interest in underwater work. A friend of mine told me about your boat sinking, and I came here to watch.’
Over the beer, M. Teurnier explains through the young woman that there is at least one completely rotten plank going from one side of the boat to the other. This is what blew out and caused the boat to sink.
‘But is it possible to bring it up again?’
His answer translates into the idea of shoving some large sheets of plywood under the suspect section, pumping to see if the boat will come up, then inspecting the damage.
The Surfacing Whale
So, that’s what we do. M. Teurnier dresses again in his diving costume, forces pieces of plywood under the leaking sections, then gives the signal for the pumps to start.
This time the boat starts rising and keeps on rising. Again it’s like a huge whale surfacing, only alive and well, more or less well. There are shouts of encouragement and applause from the village people along the bank. M. Teurnier stays down, manipulating the plywood until the hole or holes in the hull are covered. Within half an hour, the boat, filthy, waterlogged, has surfaced. M. Teurnier opens the only door to the cabin fully, and the last of the water flows out. I walk over the slippery gangplank and go inside. The entire interior is covered with dark brown mud, the consistency of thick crème fraîche, or nonemulsified peanut butter.
Again, like a latter-day astronaut, he’s undressed by his brother and jumps into his regular French blues. We go back to the café. The young woman who has been translating and instructing me as to the mysteries of les scaphandriers says she has a class and must leave. I try paying for her help with nonexistent money, but, thankfully, she’ll take nothing, which is about what I have to offer. She wishes me good luck and bon courage. Good luck, courage and more is what I need, all right.
We eat lunch at the nearest routier. Les frères Teurnier discuss what can be done. After a full bottle of wine and steaks with frites, we drive in the truck to a building-supply house. M. Teurnier buys five sacks of premixed, quick-drying, anhydrous concrete. We drive back to the scene of the crime, remove the rotted parts of the guilty board and pour the concrete over the entire area, mixing it with river water. We keep building small dams to hold the concrete in place over the damaged sections. We watch to see if the water will seep through or around it. M. Teurnier
